What Should I Do If My Dermal Piercing Rejects?
One thing that's extremely important to note about dermal piercings is that, unlike other traditional piercings, they're not meant to stay in your body forever. In other words: you should expect it to reject at some point.
"Every surface anchor rejects. They're not permanent piercings by any means," Gottschalk said. "It's so different for everybody. It could [happen in] a month or three months — it could be 10 years! But eventually, it's coming out."
How long it takes your piercing to reject can also be dependent on your aftercare process, which is why Gottschalk typically recommends clients leave their piercings alone (with the obvious exception of cleaning) after getting them.
"You have to take really good care of them — otherwise, they're going to reject pretty quickly," he said. Once it does begin to reject, you can look into seeing a professional who can tell you if there's a possibility that your piercing can be saved, or you can remove it.
"Usually the object of the game at that point is to minimize scarring, so I tend to recommend removing it the second it begins to show signs of really bad irritation," Gottschalk said.