Internal piercings include: tongue, lip, labret, cheek, or any other mouth webbings.
Don't touch your piercing at all for two to five hours. Let it settle. Give it some space. Then dive head-first into a cleaning routine to avoid nasty pus.
For internal piercings, slosh around some mouthwash - like Listerine, Biotene, Rembrandt or Tech 2000 - immediately after eating, drinking or smoking. Better yet, don't smoke. Again, with the lip and cheek piercings, just like the exterior piercings, a fluid secretion may accumulate on the jewelry. Let it dry and then clean it off with hydrogen peroxide. If you experience any pain, take Tylenol or a similar product. And please avoid food that is hot, spicy, crunchy or chew-intensive. The mushier, the better.
The process may be a bit different for the tongue, since you pierced something that doesn't have any skin. During the first three to five days after the initial pierce, the tongue will swell to approximately twice its normal size (that's one of the reasons why the barbell is so long). White, sticky secretions are normal, but yellow and green secretions can indicate an infection. Use warm salt water to remove this goop. You should check the tightness on the both ends of the barbell to make sure they aren't getting too loose and falling off.
SoYouWanna know more? Check out our full-length article SYW get an unusual piercing?
