I had wanted to get a labret piercing for months, but when I turned eighteen I suddenly decided not to do it, because someone told me it would hurt a lot more to pierce over scar tissue. I have a lot of scar tissue directly under my lip because I bit through there when I was younger. Remembering the trail of blood I left behind that day also made me a bit uneasy. About half a year after I turned eighteen, though, I decided that if I had already had a hole through my lip (especially one made by teeth, and much bigger than the one I would get pierced), I would definitely survive getting a piercing there. So I started going around to piercing shops, finding out about prices and the procedure, and still asking whether it was okay if I had a lot of scar tissue in the area to be pierced.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Dave Studio Accurate Body Piercing Location Cutler Ridge, Florida
All seemed well, and I decided to do it the next time I didn't have classes. I told one of my friends that I was finally going to get it done, and she insisted that I get one of her friends to do it. He had done several of her friends' piercings and some of her own. I said okay and proceeded to set up a day when I could get her friend to pierce me. The problem was that he lives an hour North of me, and his girlfriend would have to drive him down or I would have to drive up. For about a month we kept trying to come up with a day that all three of us didn't have things to do all day, but it wasn't working out. Finally one day his girlfriend told me that day would be good, so I gave her my phone number and told her to call me whenever she wanted me to drive up or they would drive down. She said she would call for sure, but she never did. Then she said the next day we'd do it, but it was the same thing: they never called.
This was on a Friday night, and I was getting annoyed that every time we agreed to do this, the plans fell through. So I called one of my friends and asked what she was doing that night, and she said she wasn't doing anything, so I asked if she wanted to go with me to get my lip pierced. I knew that the place I originally planned to get it done at if my friend's friend never got back to me was open until midnight on Fridays, so I picked my friend up, and headed that way.
On our way she saw the studio where she got some piercings done before, and pointed it out. I decided to get it done there instead. We went in and I talked to the piercer, Dave, about the piercing I wanted to get and asked him what gauge he pierced at for labrets and liprings. I had also changed my mind when I got there and decided to get a lipring instead of a labret stud. He said between sixteen and twelve gauge for the initial piercing, but he recommended that I get a fourteen gauge piercing until my lip healed up better and then switch to a sixteen or eighteen gauge because my face is small. It sounded fine so I said okay and paid.
Dave asked me if I had gotten a lip piercing done before, and I explained about why I had so much scar tissue, but this time I wasn't nervous about it. He went through the procedure and gave me some Listerine to rinse with. I rinsed like he told me, and went back into the studio. While he cleaned the area below my lip and got everything ready, he told me a few things I shouldn't do or shouldn't eat for two to three weeks after getting the piercing, and not to take it out if it got infected because it would seal the infection in.
When Dave was done cleaning the area, he clamped my lip and got the needle to pierce it with. I was surprised that I wasn't nervous about it, since I had been told over and over by people about how much it supposedly hurts if you have scar tissue. I wasn't looking at his hands to keep from being nervous, but I felt the needle go through, but not any pain from it. Dave corked the top part of the needle so I wouldn't get hurt with it while he got the jewelry to put in it. He then put in a fourteen gauge CBR and closed it. He explained some more things about taking care of and cleaning my piercing and things I should avoid for the first two weeks, and gave me some printed instructions and cautions. Then he said to look in the mirror and asked me what I thought. The first second I saw it I hated it but I said "oh, it's cool" anyway. When I went outside I looked at myself in a mirror again and when I moved the ball around so it would show I liked it. I guess at first I d idn't like it because it made my face look so different since it really is small, and the ring was big and tilting to the left a little (Dave had told me it would do this and that I could switch to a smaller ring after a few weeks), but I ended up liking the tilting effect as well.