Lemme start off by saying that I'm a pretty hygienic fella - I shower at least once a day, and after the gym as well, so I average more than 7 showers a week. I deodorize, and take care of myself. Which is what makes this TIFU so strange, or so I thought.
I was on a work call last month, not paying attention and scratching various body parts to alleviate the boredom when I began picking navel fluff. After about a minute I felt a decent piece of lint that felt harder than the rest, so I gave it a pull, and it actually hurt coming out. It was a piece of dry skin or scab that I had just pulled off. I didn't think much of it and went along the rest of the day.
The following day, as I was getting undressed before showering, I noticed a red stain on my shirt. My belly button had been bleeding.
Then the day after that, after my gym workout, my shirt was wet in the same spot, wetter than the first day, but not blood. It went like that for a few days, and then I woke up with a stinging sensation in my stomach/belly button area. At this point I went to the doctor (Hooray for public healthcare!), who took a look, and then prescribed me some pretty strong antibiotics. Turns out the navel is NOT a clean place, and by picking off that slab of dead skin or whatever it was, and then continuing my day, running, sweating, and all that, I had managed to get it infected.
For all my claims about cleanliness, apparently I never actually cleaned my belly button properly (raise your hand if you've ever actually dedicated any time in the shower to your belly button, don't make me be the only idiot here). And so I had to take 14 days of a pretty strong antibiotic with no drinking, so I got to be designated driver on my wife and I's group friends date night while everybody else drank.
Small fries in the larger scale of things, but bummer nonetheless.
tl:dr - picked my belly button, gave myself a nasty navel infection, no alcohol for 2 weeks on the one night I get to go out with the wife and friends while the kids are asleep.
(Disclaimer: English is not my first language. I did NOT use AI to write or rewrite this. All idiosyncrasies are mine and mine alone)
In 2012 a study came out were they'd sampled 60 people's belly buttons for bacteria.
They found 2,400 species with only 10% being shared between multiple people.
About 200 species were found in more than 10% of the belly buttons, none of these were found in all belly buttons.
Only 8 species are found in more than 70% of the belly buttons.
The samples were taken at 2 different conferences with a large range of people.
This study made me make sure to wash and rinse my belly button.
Here's a link if you want to read more.
whatever goes on in my belly button is none of my business.
That's the exact laissez-faire attitude that creates its own sovereign microbial nation in there. Your belly button is conducting foreign policy without your knowledge. This post is its declaration of war.
Theres way more bacteria in "your" body than there is "you".
Really, youre kind of the invader.
We’re all just large noisy planets for bacteria and viruses
I prefer to think of myself more as a coat rack for bacteria and viruses
I mean sure quantity wise because they're so small, but our cells take up more more volume than them. I wouldn't call them invaders as it is a mutually beneficial agreement
Air B for B
We'll meet their army on the field of battle. Gingivitis, mount up! Your King needs you!
Army? This is clearly a navel campaign.
I can't believe I missed that...
I name you Emperor. Empress? Whatever, you're the Big E now. You earned it!
This made me laugh way too hard. The idea of a belly button running rogue foreign policy is exactly the level of chaos that explains OP’s infection. Honestly feels like the microbes declared independence the moment he pulled that scab.
two robots talking to each other
we're moomin' now
I DECLARE A THUMB WAR
This made me laugh out loud in the middle of a hospital waiting area and now I look like a crazy lady.
Oh no, did the belly button bacteria get you too?!
This has made my day. 😂
I just read this as I am in the midst of laughing in a hospital waiting area from the same above comment. 😂
Waiting room crazies unite!
For real. Whatever diplomatic relations my belly button has going on is between it and God. I’m not trying to get briefed on its internal politics.
Or anyone else’s business.
A few years ago I (40M) got told by a sassy 8 y/o that I was a strange man and had a weird belly button (I have a very unremarkable belly button) and it has stuck with me since. Kid was a bully and a menace.
He had the weird one and was just jealous of my cannonballs.
It's a lawless place
I used to hate that trope you see in movies about college parties where shots are drunk from belly buttons. Absolutely nasty and the amount of nasty bacteria you can find is out of this world as your stats show.
I always thought the body shots scenes where weird too. Who wants a bunch of random people licking drinks off you?
As for bacteria being nasty, eh, they really aren't. In fact bacteria are why you exist and they actually make up more of your body then your human cells do. There's something like 5-10 x more bacteria cells living in and on your body then human cells.
These guys help us fight off infection and diseases.
The ecoli that live in your gut are the reason we can digest plant material.
It's estimated that with all the bacteria in the world less then 1% are disease causing.
Our bodies contain a slightly greater proportion of bacterial cells to human cells (~19:15 ratio), but human cells are 1,000-10,000 times larger. So, while outnumbering our cell count, bacteria accounts for only 0.2-0.3% of our total biomass.
The mitochondria in every cell, is remnants of prehistoric bacteria.
Our cells literally rely on foreign bacterial DNA to power everything we do
That’s true. Counting mitochondria as foreign means our biomass could be seen as up to 5% bacteria. It also wildly skews the proportion of bacteria to human cells, as a single human cell can contain anywhere from hundreds of mitochondria (muscle) all the way down to zero (red blood cells).
Ya but the bacteria you get drinking from a college students neglected belly button will 100% contain bad bacteria (as well as good bacteria like the awesome ones that help us digest plant material as you pointed out). Still a huge no from me unless I personally wash that person haha
This is why using antibacterial soap on the regular is bad for you. You're killing the bacteria that naturally live on your skin, and fight off the ones that can cause trouble in large numbers. Everyone carries Staphylococcus aureus on their skin, but your other skin flora keep them in check. Kill off the bacteria that compete with S. aureus, and they can grow out of control. A paper cut can get badly infected.
That's why they drinks vodka shots from them, not cola - it lets the alcohol sanitise the area.
Someone hasn’t done booty luges in a Cancun pool yet.
whichn is why one should wahs ones belly button daily with soap and water, i can't believe the number of fastidious cleaners who dont realize one needs to do this
Can I create a bio weapon with belly button microbes?
Do you think this applies to outies too? Are they less prone to bacteria if it’s not hidden in the dark? LOL
I don't know. I don't think the original study made a note of if the sampled belly buttons were innies or outties.
My guess is they would similar in amount of bacteria in both total amount and number of species but would differ in the type of bacteria found i.e. more drought tolerant on outties vs innies.
I'd be surprised if innies and outies had the same levels of bacteria.
I do not want to read more, I’m going to take your word for it, and I’m going to start scrubbing the fuck out of that thing
Was that the study where only one North American had a Southern Hemisphere microbe I the belly button? They hypothesized the person had sex with someone from that region.
It was a Japanese soil bacteria and the subject had never been to Japan!
I think so? It's been years since I actually read it.
But now that you've jogged my memory I think I remember it being a soil bacteria from South America.
So you're saying that, in a manure-less pinch, you can dip an arrowhead in your belly button and thy enemy will suffer an agonizing death?
This is a thought I can appreciate since as a child, after hearing the story of David and Goliath, I tried mixing a poison to make the stone even deadlier!
I remember a similar story where they took a swab from a person’s belly button living in New York, that never travelled abroad, and they found a bacteria that until then was known to only live in the soil found on one particular mountain in Japan.
Can you post another link because I really don't want to read any more about that.
You forgot to mention the extremophiles that are usually only found in fucking glaciers.
Belly button microbiome: 8 species to rule them all
So what you're saying is if I ate even just a few samples of belly button lint my immune system would become indestructible...
Well guess who's giving their bellybutton a proper rinse tonight!
Brb, checking my belly button
Ok but how many of those bacteria are also elsewhere on the body? And how many are actually bad?
Has medical practice changed since 2012 on how belly buttons be formed at birth?
Edit: Serious question for obstetrics
This is why health authorities advise against using one's belly button as an organic pudding cup.
That's why I stick to doing shots out of them. Sanitizes them too.
Bonus points if you run the shots down the body first
Have the Health Authorities ruled on whether you can keep jellybeans in ur eye socket if ur missing an eye?
I know a guy who likes to stick toothpicks in green grapes, then put those in his eye socket instead of his glass eye. Gotdamn that startles me!
I just store my snacks in mine.
i'm dead
I learned about navel stones last year and have been more diligent about cleaning and drying mine since 😅
Wait, wait, wait this is a real thing? Probably 20 years ago my wife saw something in my belly button and so we worked on it and cleaned it out. It was really stuck in there but clearly did not belong. We have always called it my belly rock. She still brings up that time she found a rock in my belly button and laughs about it. I need to go look this up now!
And yes since that day, I clean my button in every shower.
Don’t know what navel stones is but what is the correct way to clean one’s belly button? Just putting your finger inside it when showering? I think I remember one time reading about using oil in the belly button once
I just lather up my tummy and then swirl my little finger around in my bellybutton to get any little folds of skin or crevices completely clean and then splash water in it to rinse it.
10w40 motor oil?
Truffle oil.
This depends on some things but we got told after taking my kid in for stones (she has a skin fold) to put mineral or baby oil in, mush around and let sit then rinse well with warm soapy water on a cloth or bulb syringe if necessary.
I wash my belly button, but I'm always afraid I'm going to pop open when I do.
I am picturing a person farting around the bathroom like a deflating balloon😅
My mind pictures that exact thing, but in a Gary Larsson cartoon style.
“Find that, would you, nurse; we’re going to need that”
I'm dead.
When i was younger i was convinced mine would come untied and my insides would all fall out
I remember trying to clean mine once as a kid and then suddenly feeling like I would die if I messed with my belly button too much. I feel so validated and much less weird from this thread.
Umbilical Hernia : Extreme Edition.
When I was a kid, the neighborhood rumor was that if you unscrewed your belly button, your butt would fall off.
This was about ten years ago. I noticed a wet spot on my shirt when I got home from work. Checked it out and there was pus coming out of my belly button. It was just full of pus.
I rinsed it/washed it out and then used a qtip to try and clean it. Not much came out, maybe a few dog hairs and a little lint. Figured it was fine. Happened again a few days later and I still didn't get anything out of it. So I decided to lay down on the bathroom floor and filled my belly button with some peroxide. It bubbled furiously and when I sat up a few minutes later, the biggest wad of horsehair came out 🤣
Important note: I am not a horse. I just rode them and groomed them and apparently I somehow managed to collect a bunch of horsehair in my bellybutton that then became infected. Yummmmm
This meme always gets me.
IKR?! 😂
I’m getting the peroxide right now.
Reddit should have a giant nsfl warning over comments like this.
I used to use a qtip in my belly button after a shower couldn’t believe all the stuff that came out of it lol
Why'd you stop?
They reached adulthood and their bellybutton fell off duh
🤣🤣
lol it became clean all the time
I started washing my belly button and doing a post shower w tip, all because my three year old discovered it smelled insane.
Like Satan’s asshole?
Satan would probably love eating out my naval.
My whole life, I've had a recurring dream where there's something sticking out of my belly button (like a hair or piece of lint) and I pull it out but it just keeps getting longer until I'm pulling out my insides.
I saw a clown do that once
Thanks, now I never want to dream again.
I had my gall bladder out and one of the incisions was in my belly button, a week later I saw something pink sticking out. On investigation it looked like a fleshy tag of some sort, cue panic as I full on believed my intestines were forcing their way out of my belly button. A frantic call to the GP and subsequent visit it was diagnosed as a Pyogenic granuloma which was treated over the next week with a copper sulphate ‘stone’ So basically a nurse dabbing at this thing with what looked like a blue stone. It was a very strange experience.
Just Like Home reference?
Ok, been there, but then instead of an infection my belly button decided to start growing again 😳 yes that's a thing that can happen after an "injury", a scratch, in my case. The Dr had me lay on my back and soak the bellybutton in hydrogen peroxide 3 times a day for a couple of weeks until it fell off naturally like it would in a newborn. Bodies do weird shit. I've since been careful not to scratch it but always clean it in the shower.
Mine is pretty clean because it's where I keep the salt when I eat tomatoes in bed.
Ha! My grandmother used to tell me my belly button was for putting salt to dip my carrots in! I have never heard anyone else say this saying until now!
She also used to tell me that if I drank coffee, my belly button would turn black.
Every shower I at least stick my pinky finger in and wiggle it around with some soap and then splash water in it. Every once in a while I get a qtip and get in deeper. As a fat guy, its always been on my list to clean since I saw a kid in high school shove a whole Bic lighter in his and pull it out with all sorts of gunk on it. I never want my belly button to get like that.
how deep are people's bellybuttons??? oh my god, that's a whole pocket!
Lol. I think he was pretty unique in that aspect, but he loved showing everyone he could do it. After 20 years I don't remember his name, but I feel like he is the kind of guy who definitely became a plumber or something.
I'm reasonably sure my belly button connects to a whole ass cave system. Even when I was super skinny I have literally never been able to touch the bottom. God only knows what's going on in there, I assume the bacteria have probably evolved into multi-celled organisms at this point. I sort of think of it less as part of my body and more as a portal to another dimension that happens to hang out on my stomach.
as someone with a shallow, wide bellybutton whose bottom is visible at all times unless i am fully curled up in a ball/completely bent over, this is unimaginable to me. it really is the tiny, meaningless things in life that give us all the most different experiences lmao
I relate so much to your first two sentences, then the rest of your sentences filled me with dread as I thought about it more. Maybe I should get one of those ear cameras lol. Also, this thread has made me feel less weird for having a strangely deep belly button 😂
Yes I've found my people! 😂
I can touch bottom on mine but it does swallow almost the entire q-tip to do so.
From a medical professional: the belly button holds ungodly horrors. I regularly pull lumps of debris out of them. People forget to or cannot clean it, and it is never who you expect. They often are weirdly sensitive so hard to scrub.
If you put a little bit of lotion in it, it is easier to wipe and clean. Softens up the crud.
when i met my wife (who is super clean, sometimes showering multple times a day) i was amazed she never washed her belly button (innie) with soap and water, so i stuck my finger and made her smell it
she washed her belly button from there on out
methinks you don't wash it daily/properly, you should (use soap and a finger)
Also gym is where a lot of staph infections get spread, might not be the belly button but the fact that it was a wound that you exposed to the gym.
I've had psoraisis outbreaks in my belly button so I clean and moisturize that thing daily. But if I didn't have psoriasis, I'd probably have a full microbial civilization in there.
Reading this in the bath tub.
Soaking my belly button now, and will be cleaning it intentionally for the first time ever. Thank you.
You're lucky your bum didn't fall off. That's what happens if you completely unscrew your belly button.
Ha hah! That's what the neighbor kids used to say would happen when I was little!
Can y’all just dig around your belly button without feeling weird? I hate cleaning mine because it makes me uterus/below my belly area feel like I’m poking it or something, I’m not sure how to explain the sensation.
Yes, this is exactly how I feel, as well!
It is such a freaky sensation.
I feel the same! It feels like it's connected somehow to my insides and poking or pressing is the weirdest, almost painful sensation, like I'm pulling on a thread or smth
I don't like it
I'm pretty gentle when cleaning for that reason. My partner doesn't get that sensation lol I had to explain why I didn't like him touching it, and I felt a little nuts. Nice to know it isn't just me!
Yes I was looking thru this thread to see if someone mentioned this! There's a lot of weird pressure inside my stomach when I try to clean and it weirds me out and it's uncomfortable
Mine felt like that until I had a laproscopic surgery where they went through my belly button. I don't really get that anymore
I use my little finger and rummage around in there while I'm all soapy, and direct the spray in afterward.
Still find some lint from time to time, but it's not a big deal.
Same, but mine is shallow and open, I don’t think stuff would stay in there if I put it there lmao
The navel giveth lint, and the navel taketh away. You’re not alone, brother.
I use my Waterpic in the shower. A little soap in there and then a good pressure wash!
I sure hope you clean it afterwards
Motherfucker. Today, for the first time EVER, I discovered what felt like a little pimple in my belly button and scraped it off to the point I had a little red under my fingernail. Now I see this and learn I'm going to die from it.
Put Neosporin in there now and you might not die!
Soap and water first!!
How is your bellybutton doing?
Kevin: I took a shower, washing every body part with actual soap. Including all my major crevices...and between my toes and in my belly button...which I never did before but sort of enjoyed.
Used to live on the same road as "Belly Button Guy" who would on every single occasion he walked past my house be having a belly button rummage. In the winter months he'd be more subtlety sneaking a finger in there, but in the summer he'd pull his tshirt up and clearly be navelly excavating.
What? I mean…. What?!?! You just peeping this guy rummaging in his bells from your window? Thank you for your service sir
Joke told to me by my new Pastor (female to female).
Do you know what bellybuttons are for?
A place to park your bubblegum on the way down.
I'll show myself out...
for a moment i thought you meant your pastor had transitioned from female to female and i was like "good for her2 ?"
What did the policeman say to his belly button?
....
You're under a vest!!!
this happened to my friend too!!! you’re not alone. i clean mine with a q-tip and soapy water regularly now.
Yes I wash my belly button every shower. If you don't they stink.
Omigod someone else! Yeah I have a relatively deep belly button that I pick on occasion and a few years back it started hurting a little then a LOT, went to urgent care and they were baffled, sent me to the emergency room where they asked if I had been shooting up (and also thought I had HIV bc I was on prep) then finally realized it was cellulitis. Antibiotics took care of it but I was bed ridden for several days bc any motion equaled excruciating pain on acct of proximity to my core.
One of the worst experiences in my life. And it even started coming back not too long ago but knew well enough to get on antibiotics asap.
Pro tip: a little bit of lotion before bed, q tip in the morning. The lotion loosens up the crud.
Or vaseline.
2nd tip: maybe don’t pick it on occasion
Edit: am not here to judge. I pick at my fingers till they bleed.
I used to cut hair. It is amazing where you can find slivers of other people hair at the end of the day. Once a hair got in my belly button (over the years many hairs found their way to my belly button, but this hair in particular), embedded in the skin and got infected. It was so painful!
One day I noticed lint in my teens belly button. I let them know and they pulled it out but noticed more. So they went and got q-tips. That child insisted that this putrid cheese pit had to be cleaned out in my presence. I swear they shower, they are more conscious of hygiene than some other kids. As each q-tip came out it was absolutely covered in what I can only assume was the vernix coating present birth, and 14 years later it had fermented. The SMELL was blasphemy.
Anywho. Later that day it was red and same as you it got infected. My mother is a doctor so I had the kid talk to grandma, sure enough antibiotics were needed.
My mom said it’s pretty common to get an infection if you mess around in there.weird
How does one actually clean the belly button? Bc if I go near mine, it is reaaaaaallllyyy uncomfortable. No other sensation like it. 😖
I don't clean the inside of my belly button every time. Every once in a while there's even a little crumbly bit of compacted shed skin.
No, you are not alone, you just won the lottery with this one.
I used to have a fungal infection in my belly button (it was very itchy). So I gently cleaned it during each shower with my pinky and with alcohol soaked cotton swabs between showers. It did eventually go away. Probably just took longer than if I had just picked up some antifungal cream.
It was either that or scratch it to death.
I’m genuinely too scared to mess with my belly button these days, but that’s because I had a surgery that included slicing straight through my belly button. I now have a Long belly button that’s much deeper and more painful to touch than before
My pinky always takes a poke and twist in the shower
As an operatimg room nurse whos seen thousands of bellybuttons... please clean your bellybuttons. Ive had to pick bellybutton stones out of people too many times to count.
Docs put a laparoscopic scope right through the tissue there, if your bellybutton is full of crap, your insides get a little taste of all that bacteria and you'll wake up with a pretty sore bellybutton because we will pick the shit out of it (we're weird and love that kind of stuff) and then clean it with alcohol based cleaners. I've never made soneone bleed though... so that's weird.
Ok, so when I was a child, my older overweight sister would hold me down, dig around in her belly button, and wipe it all over my face. IT FUCKING STANK!
She called it smeg. I would cry and scream, I couldn't escape it, she was easily 3× my size, 5 years older, and like I said overweight.
I would run into my mum's room and use her perfume on my face, trying to mask the smell that was plastered all over my face.
My mum didn't really do anything about it, "don't do that Kate" while I'm hyperventilating, crying and dry-retching,
It traumatised me. She'd be laughing, and digging around in there threatening me that she'd do it again. She would do this whenever she felt like it.
I was SA by my mum's bf as a child, and that didn't have as much of an impact as her wiping her filthy smeg all over my face.
30+ years later and I'm still hating her for it. I've brought it up over the years, in front of her husband too, she's embarrassed about it, turned bright red, tried to justify it, yeah, fuck her.
Now she's got kids of her own, I wonder how she would handle something like that. Probably praise them.
Belly buttons are nasty. I am fat and have a deep belly button, so I actually do focus on making sure it gets all soaped up and stuff.
Once, my ex BIL, has a seed sprout in his belly button. He is/was a tree trimmer, apparently got a seed in there without knowing. He told my sister his belly button hurt... she looked... utter shock.
Make sure you thoroughly dry it after bathing. A similar thing happened to me and so I also began to wash my belly button, but it will persist if it is constantly wet.
Yeah I did that once (not to the point of bleeding thankfully). Anyway I now have a navel phobia. They gross me out. Yes, that includes my own.
Maybe once a year, while camping, my belly button will get nasty. I try to clean it really well, but camp showers are not the same as hot home showers. I notice it starts to sting, so I usually take a cotton swab and add peroxide/antibiotic cream. After a few days it will stop hurting.
OP untied their belly button 😳
if you have a hairy belly it rubs fluff from your t-shirt and collects in it, I can pull some huge caterpillars out of there
Clogged lint trap
I was pregnant when my innie became outie and I popped out a navel stone
Beware....The persuit of the itch,
Upvote for your disclaimer OP!
I have super dry skin and a belly piercing, so I always get the dead skin in there. I’ve never had a scab though, I didn’t know that was possible
🖐️
I did this exact thing, mine got infected enough to abscess.
Got the antibiotics but also the fun of a small incision and painful pressure to drain it, and two weeks of dressing packed in there
I wanna start a punk band called "Belly Button Idiosyncrasies"....."Hey, did you hear the latest album by BBI?".....the merch would be cool too!
One of my biggest fears is accidentally untying my belly button.
You should give up picking your belly button for Lent.
I guess I’ll go add this to the list reasons I’m excited that I’m about to not have a belly button anymore.
My belly button is surrounded by hair and acts as a lint trap. My family is not impressed whenever I share this.
Wow you're absolutely not alone.. I don't recall ever dedicating time to scrubbing inside the belly button before. I even make sure to scrub behind the ears and everything too so this surprises me.
Vaseline is your friend
My outie is now an innie because I got fat. As an outie it had a few creases on the end. Dead skin cells build up in the creases but are easily scratched out. Now it's also blocked from air flow as an innie.
I cleaned out the creases and swabbed around with a Q-tip to remove any water / sweat. (after a bath) The next day it was slimy and gross. Had to clean it again and this time it was painful. WTF I swabbed on some Vaseline to protect any raw skin. Good to go
NOW any time I decide to clean out the creases and pick at my belly button I know I've irritated it = so immediately use Vaseline to protect it.
Don't slather in there and fill the whole hole. Scoop some up with a clean Q-tip, run it around to coat everything, then keep running it around a little longer to work it in. Like you would rub hand lotion for a little while, while it soaks in.
I respect the bacteria and organisms that live in my belly button. I rarely use that part of the body anyway. I don't mess around in there and I leave it alone. Bacteria need a space to chill and have fun too.
Funny or at least not so funny i had the same problem with my bellybutton, solution strong antibiotics
When I was in high school I had the same issue. Now I’m very careful to clean my belly button regularly lol
How...how large are yall? Like holy shit. Some of yall losing small children in there smh
For some reason, this reminded me of the Big Gut Guys sketch by the Kids in the Hall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-reSVQOO7s
Had a similar thing happen a few years ago. Freaked me out, too.
🙋♂️ wash mine daily, weirdo.
I had laparoscopic surgery decades ago, and now my navel has scars that prevent me from really getting in there to clean it. I worry about this way too much.
I had a 3 key surgery once, and my bellybutton area got infected during healing process. They had to manually drain out the infection in the triage clinic. I did have some anisthesia but holy crap the manual draining was more painful than the procedure I had.
I'm honestly not sure how you're supposed to clean your navel, since for me personally, even just touching it can feel immensely uncomfortable, on top of the occasional jolt of pain (?) which goes through it every now and then whenever I move in (un)certain ways.
The doctor I went to about that concluded it could be 1 of 2 things: I don't remember the first, but the second option would be that there's some kinda irritated nerve there. Luckily it happens maybe once a month, probably less.
Every shower I have I clean my belly button properly, never neglect it as it can get proper dirty.
A friend told me when we were kids never touch your belly button so I never did then as and adult had a few surgery's where they put the camera in thru the bellybutton, And now always end up with infections in there some heal on own others need medicine
Almost as bad as smoking in Dunkin Donuts. Just nasty.
Would it be weird to collect enough belly button lint to knit a scarf?
I kid you not, I just dealt with the same thing. Mysteriously finding blood on my shit after picking why I thought was hard lint. Going to urgent care. Strong antibiotics (5 days only). Crazy timing 😂
Just work your soapy washrag around in there.
I pulled something similar to what you described (only with a cat hair attached!) from my belly button, but managed to avoid the infection…I can tell you I, too, was more conscious of navel hygiene after that!!
This happened to me around age 17-18. I bandaged it up, recovered, and learned to "gently clear it," like an ear canal but not using a Q-tip; things have been better (or at least sustainable) since.
As a former mortician...I've seen things. Wash those belly buttons! Innies and outies (not talking about Severance).
When I was in elementary school I became weirdly fixated on my belly button and would stick my finger in there… probably picking at it. It would get sore and so my mom took me to the doctor. I was told to stop touching it. And that you aren’t supposed to put things in it. I have followed this rule for forever. Now thinking about what kind of cesspool I have growing in there is freaking me out. But also, the thought of cleaning it makes my belly button hurt. I’ll try it out tomorrow morning. 😬
Ha! I have an outty belly button that sometimes sort of swirls and tucks back into an innie. I can easily pop it back out though… its pretty clean as a result as its not very deep and may be in or out depending on the day and how bloated I am.
I've always washed mine with soap because it has always been deep. But it always had a bit of yeast smell by the end of the day if I stuck a finger in there.
A few years ago, I tried argan oil and that actually keeps it fully clean. No yeast. Just a happy biome.
I tried because my doggy has an incredible oil based ear cleaner for the humid season and I thought hey, I'm a mammal! It works very well.
I recommend it thoroughly. Soap and water for showers. A little argan oil on a Q-Tip, apply with one end and get in there, gently of course, and clean out any excess with the other end.
♡
My mom taught me to clean it with an alcohol based lotion we have here in Brazil. Aside from soap when I shower, I do it once a month... Dunno if it's enough, but never had any problems.
When I had abdominal surgery, they told me to be sure to clean my belly button really well first, and that most people’s navels were really dirty. I found it’s not easy to clean it well imo, so I started using a q-tip with soap and water. Much easier to clean thoroughly that way!
I didn’t even know belly button lint actually existed until just a few months ago. I lovingly call them “snacks” (non consumption-able of course).
At least you can get liver, bladder, or circulatory fluids! It's all still connected.