Taking jewelry out: hospitals, school sport and work

Sooner or later somebody will tell you to take your jewelry out. A hospital before a scan, a school before a match, an employer on your first day, a coach at the side of a pitch. It is always sudden, it is never convenient, and almost nobody has practiced.

This page is the preparation. What comes out easily, what does not, how long you actually have before a channel closes, and what to put in instead when the answer is nothing metal rather than nothing at all.

The rule that matters most: practice before you need to

The worst place to discover that you cannot undo your own jewelry is a hospital corridor, in a gown, with somebody waiting.

So do it once, calmly, at home, in good light, in front of a mirror. Work out which end of your bar unscrews. Learn whether your septum piece is a ring that hinges open, a horseshoe with balls on both ends, or a clicker that comes apart in one place only. Find out whether your lobe stud has a flat back that pushes or a thread that turns.

Do it now, while nothing depends on it. Then put it back. That fifteen minutes is the single most useful thing on this page.

If you cannot manage it, that is worth knowing too, and it is worth knowing in advance. Come in and we will show you. It takes a few minutes and there is no charge for being shown.

Which way does it come apart

Most body jewelry falls into a handful of designs and each one opens differently.

Threaded barbells. A bar with a ball at each end. One end usually turns, the other is fixed. Righty tighty, lefty loosey, as with any thread. Internally threaded pieces have the thread in the bar and the pin on the ball. Externally threaded ones are the other way round and are harsher on a channel.

Threadless or push-fit. No thread at all. The top has a bent pin that grips inside a hollow bar by tension. It pulls straight out and pushes straight back, and it is easier to handle than a thread, which is why a lot of studios have moved to it. Our page on what jewelry is made of and how it fastens goes further into this.

Captive bead rings. A ring with a ball held in place by the ring's own tension. These are the ones people lose in a sink. If you are not confident, this is the design to have swapped for something else before you are ever asked to remove it in a hurry.

Clickers and hinged rings. A segment hinges open. Easy, once you know which segment. Hard, if you are hunting for it under a light with somebody watching.

Flat-back labret studs. The back is a disc that stays put and the top unscrews or pulls off. These are the friendliest design for exactly this situation, which is one reason they are so common in ears.

How long before it closes

This is the question everybody actually wants answered, and the honest version has ranges rather than numbers.

A fresh piercing, still healing. Fast. Sometimes within hours, often within a day. A healing channel is an open wound actively trying to close, and it will take any chance it gets. This is why removing a fresh piercing for a match on Saturday usually means losing it.

A well-healed lobe, worn for years. Stubborn. Many people can leave one empty for days and refit it, some for years. There is no promise in that, only a tendency.

A well-healed cartilage piercing. Less forgiving than a lobe and more variable. Hours to days is a sensible assumption rather than weeks.

Tongue. Notoriously quick. The mouth heals faster than anywhere else on the body and a tongue channel can tighten in hours.

Navel, nostril, septum. Days to weeks when properly healed, though nostrils in particular are known for shrinking enough overnight to make refitting a struggle even when the channel is still there.

Our healing times page has the figures for how long each placement takes to heal in the first place, which is the other half of this picture.

Retainers, and when they are allowed

A retainer is a piece whose whole job is to hold a channel open while being as invisible or as inert as possible.

Glass. Solid, inert, holds a channel well, and it is not metal, which matters for imaging.

Polymer, usually PTFE or bioflex. Flexible, non-metallic, can be trimmed to length. Common for navels and for anything that needs to bend.

Clear or skin-toned discs and studs. Designed to be discreet rather than invisible. Good for a workplace with a dress code. Not the same thing as being allowed in an operating theater.

Here is the important qualification, and it applies to every one of them. Whether a retainer may stay in for a given procedure is decided by the people doing the procedure, not by us and not by the person who sold it to you. A glass retainer is non-metallic, which removes one specific objection, but hospitals have policies covering sterile fields, swelling, airway access and a good deal else. Ask them. Take it out if they say so.

Hospitals, imaging and surgery

Assume everything comes out and be pleasantly surprised if it does not.

For imaging that uses a magnetic field, metal is not a matter of preference. For surgery, jewelry is removed for reasons that include the sterile field, the risk of pressure injury while you are unconscious and unable to feel it, and the electrical pathway created by anything conductive.

What to do in advance if you know a procedure is coming: practice removal, buy retainers if you use them, and ask the department directly what their policy is rather than asking the internet. If a piercing is very new and you are worried about losing it, say so early. Sometimes the procedure can wait a fortnight. Sometimes it cannot, and then the piercing is the thing that gives.

One thing we will not do is tell you to keep jewelry in against medical instruction. A closed channel is a piercing you can have again. Ignoring a hospital is a different category of problem.

School, and sport

Most schools and most sports bodies require jewelry to be removed for contact sport, and taping over it is often explicitly not accepted. The reasoning is straightforward: a stud caught in a collar or a finger is an injury to two people.

The practical consequence is worth planning around. If a piercing is fresh, it cannot come out, so it will not survive a season of being removed weekly. The fix is timing rather than argument.

Pierce at the start of a long break, so the initial healing happens while nothing is being taken out. Pick placements that suit the sport if you play one seriously. And if a coach or a school tells you to remove something you know is too new, say how new it is and offer the alternative of sitting out rather than losing it. Nobody is served by pretending a two-week-old cartilage piercing can come out for an hour and go back in.

Work

Dress codes vary and there is no general rule to give you. What we can say is that a retainer solves most workplace objections without losing the piercing, and that the piece to be asking about before you get pierced is not the one you will wear at the weekend but the one you can wear on a Tuesday.

If you are about to start a job with a policy you have not seen, that is a good reason to wait a fortnight before getting something visible done, rather than a reason to get it done quickly beforehand.

Taking it out without wrecking the channel

Clean hands, every time. This is the whole of the hygiene advice and it is the part people skip.

Do it over a towel on a flat surface, not over a sink. Balls, discs and captive beads roll, and a drain is a drain.

Do not force anything. If a thread will not turn, it is either the other end or it is stuck, and stuck jewelry is a studio problem rather than a pliers problem. People damage more piercings trying to remove jewelry than wearing it.

If a channel is sore, leave it. Removing jewelry from a piercing that is already irritated frequently means it will not go back in, and a sore piercing is not the one to be experimenting on.

Putting it back

The most common failure is not removal, it is refitting. A channel that has tightened slightly will resist, and the instinct is to push harder.

Do not. Forcing a bar through a narrowed channel tears a new route beside the old one, which hurts, bleeds, and heals as a wider scar than you started with.

If it will not go in with gentle, steady pressure, stop and come in. A piercer can usually taper a channel open again in a couple of minutes if it has only shrunk rather than closed, and that is a far better outcome than a forced refit.

If it has closed

A closed channel is not a catastrophe and it is usually re-piercable, but not always straight through the old scar and not always immediately.

Scar tissue behaves differently from the tissue around it. It is less elastic, sometimes denser, and a piercer will want to look at it and decide whether to go through it, beside it, or wait. That is a five-minute conversation, and it is the right one to have before booking anything.

The small kit worth owning before you need it

None of this is expensive and all of it is easier to have than to find at short notice.

A spare retainer for anything visible. Glass or polymer, in the right gauge and length for the piercing you actually have, not the one you think you have. Gauge is the thickness of the bar and it matters more than length for whether a piece will pass through at all.

A small clean container. Anything with a lid. Jewelry left on a hospital tray or in a jacket pocket is jewelry that is gone.

Knowing your own sizes, written down. Most people have no idea what gauge or length they wear, which makes buying a replacement guesswork. Ask at your next visit and put it in your phone. It takes ten seconds and it saves an argument with a website later.

What is not worth owning is a set of pliers. Household tools scratch jewelry, and a scratched surface inside a channel is an irritation waiting to happen. Rings that need opening properly need ring-opening pliers, which are a studio item.

The version to keep on your phone

If you remember nothing else from this page, these are the five lines that matter.

Practice taking your own jewelry out once, at home, before anybody asks you to.

Fresh piercings close fast. Healed lobes are stubborn. Tongues are quickest of all.

Whether a retainer may stay in is the hospital's decision, not yours and not ours.

If it will not come out, stop. If it will not go back in, stop. Both are five-minute studio jobs and both get much worse with force.

Time new piercings around the things you already know are coming: a season, a term, a procedure, a new job.

And if you are not sure which of those applies to you, ring the studio and describe the situation rather than guessing from a page. Most of what people worry about here turns out to be a two-minute answer, and the ones that are not are much better dealt with a week early than an hour late.

Where we are

Piercings & Co., CF Carrefour Laval, unit J012A, 3003 Boulevard le Carrefour, Laval, Quebec H7T 1C7. Call (450) 682 1777.

Come in if you want to be shown how your own jewelry opens, if you need retainers before a procedure, or if something will not go back in. Being shown and being looked at are both free.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long can I leave a piercing empty?

It depends entirely on the placement and on how well healed it is. A fresh piercing can close in hours. A lobe worn for years may sit empty for days. Tongue channels tighten notably fast, and nostrils are known for shrinking overnight. Treat every figure you read as a tendency rather than a promise.

Can I keep a retainer in for an MRI or surgery?

That is decided by the department doing the procedure, not by us. A glass or polymer retainer removes the metal objection, but hospitals have policies about sterile fields, swelling and access that have nothing to do with the material. Ask them directly and take it out if they say so.

My school says no jewelry for sport. What can I do?

If it is healed, take it out for the match and put it back afterwards, ideally with a flat-back or push-fit piece that is easy to handle. If it is fresh, it cannot come out, so the real answer is timing: get pierced at the start of a long break so the healing happens while nothing needs removing.

The jewelry will not unscrew. What now?

Stop before you damage it. It is usually the other end that turns, and if it genuinely is stuck, that is a job for a studio with the right tools rather than for household pliers. Come in and we will get it out.

It will not go back in. Have I lost it?

Probably not, if you stop pushing. A channel that has shrunk rather than closed can often be tapered open again in a couple of minutes. Forcing it tears a new route alongside the old one and leaves a wider scar than you began with.

Which jewelry is easiest to take out in a hurry?

Flat-back labret studs and threadless push-fit pieces. Captive bead rings are the hardest and the easiest to lose down a sink. If you know you will be removing something regularly, have it swapped for a design that suits that.

Can you show me how mine works?

Yes, come in. It takes a few minutes, there is no charge, and it is far better learned on a quiet afternoon than in a hospital corridor.