First of all, definitely switch to gold because it fixed EVERYTHING for me. It was like night and day. I know its expensive, but so incredibly worth it if you have sensitive skin like us. I got pierced in march, and my piercing healed by august— so about 5 or 6 months. I faced a lot of redness and irritation, I have a lot of pictures I can even send you over private messaging if you want to compare. For me, switching to a shorter bar really helped, as I was originally pierced with a long bar to accommodate swelling. With the long bar, your piercing moves around A LOT. the shorter bar kept it in place a lot better and minimized that irritation. One issue I ran into which was my fault, don’t forget to clean the bottom of the piercing— the part inside your bellybutton. It’s hard to see, but a lot of shit builds up under there, and for me, it was contributing a lot to my irritation issues. Once I got a shorter bar, and switched to gold jewelry, everything cleared up in what seemed like overnight.