How long does it take for a lip piercing to grow over?

Answer 1

Answer 1: For all the people asking "how long will my [x] take to close after I take it out?" and/or the related question "How long until I can get [x] re-pierced?" the answer is always the same: IT DEPENDS. Everyone's body is different.

That being said, I'm certain that certain holes are statistically likely to close more quickly than certain other holes. To the best of my understanding: The fastest-healing are in your mouth, since those cells grow very quickly. A tongue stud hold can close up in less than an hour. The insides of your lip rings would also start to knit shut very very quickly. The next fastest, or equally fast, closing piercings are surface piercings. This includes eyebrows! Eyebrows are definitely a surface piercing (a piercing that runs under the surface of your skin rather than piercing a natural flap or thing that sticks out). These heal very quickly, since, after all, they are a tunnel under flat skin; why would they last very long without jewelry in them? It's probably safe to assume that belly button piercings heal very quickly too, and genitalpiercings (inner labia ones might last a while longer than others but I'd think that vertical or horizontal clitoral hood piercings, head/glans piercings, etc. would heal super-quickly. The LONGEST-lasting are ear-lobe piercings. Some people barely wear them, take them out, and then, YEARS later, they can still easily find the hole. Cartilage piercings seem like they depend on the person. For me personally? I had a four-year old cartilage piercing fall out in my sleep a few weeks ago and when I noticed, about 8 hours later, what had happened, it was already difficult to get it back in.

It also depends upon what you mean by "close". Pretty quickly, it will be difficult to put the jewelry in without causing damage. Then, you won't be able to get it in at all, but you'll still have a sort of visible dimple where the piercing was. Then that'll smooth out over time (for a lot of people; on others a scar might remain), but you can't tell by looking at the outside what's going on on the INSIDE.

No one can really know the answer to "when will it close," but I'd think that (aside from earlobes), there are almost NO PIERCINGS (except on very anomalous individuals) that would remain open after a few weeks--and those that would last more than a week would be in the ears, not anywhere else. Mouth ones can close in hours. Cartilage too, apparently, so be aware. I know that I would never leave ANY of my piercings out for more than a few minutes, under the assumption that they can all begin to close in a matter of hours.

If you're just curious when it will close, then it really doesn't matter what you think the answer is. But if you're going to take whatever I say and then think it's okay to get re-pierced then, well... That's not so smart. Before you can get re-pierced, you want it to have healed really well, inside and out. And even then, you might not want to get it pierced in exactly the same place. No one can tell you how closed or how healed it is over the internet; they'd have to look at it to see. If you're considering getting it re-pierced, ask a professional piercer for his/her opinion. If you're not planning on getting re-pierced, then just relax and it will close shortly.

If anyone knows, please help improve this answer by adding ROUGH ESTIMATES (or sharing personal experiences) of how quickly piercings close. But to the asker: Don't assume that your body is like someone else's! Also, remember that people have different ideas of what "open" means (i.e. some people are willing to JAM it back in, ripping through flesh, and call that a success and say it was still open.)