Well, for those of you who regularly read my IAM page, you have probably glanced at my initial experience. The labret has worked out quite well. About a month after I had it done, I noticed it had a bit of a 'lip' of skin on the inside. Luis explained that this was probably scar tissue as I tended to play with the back of it a lot. After being reprimanded to 'not play with it', he applied a crushed aspirin tabled to the area and in a day the 'lip' was gone.
At A Glance Author TDK Contact TDK@bme.anon IAM TDK When It just happened Artist Luis Garcia Studio NoKaOi Tiki Tattoo and Piercing Location 610 S 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 It's been interesting, I initially had a gold ball on it – and the gold ball blended so well with the color of my beard that the labret was practically invisible. The initial post was long to allow the swelling to go down, and Luis swapped it out for a shorter post about a month after. With my beard slightly long and the gold bead, the piercing was almost a secret unless you were looking close. I was quite happy!
After a few months with it Luis surprised me for Christmas with a diamond for it. Suddenly it was a lot more noticeable, but by that time, I had grown used to it and was quite happy with it. Frankly, in the computer industry, the best of the best engineers are expected to be quirky, and this was my quirk. It was amazing to me how many people were suddenly mentioning "I have my nipples pierced" or "I've been wanting to do that". My fears of sabotaging multi-million dollar deals because of appearance prejudice proved to be completely unfounded – Hooray!
The diamond brought a lot more prominence to the piercing, but all in all it was well accepted and life moved on. What I didn't realize was that, very slowly, the metal was seeping into my blood.
Now before some anti-piercing fanatic grabs this out of context and waves it as a banner of why not to get pierced, let me clarify. No, I was not dissolving the jewelry and experiencing some type of metal toxicity. Yes, I was coming under the spell of piercing and subtlety and slowly thinking about where to next go. Like tattooing or Doritos, I found that there was a need to continue down the path I'd started.
I decided to upgauge what I had. I know a lot of you would have wanted me to consider a new piercing, but to be honest, there's no where I'm particularly motivated to pierce at the moment beyond the labret. I wandered up to NoKaOi Tikki Tattoo and Piercing, 610 S 4th St, Philadelphia, and decided to check out the new place, see my better half, and get the upsizing done.
The new store is excellent and the people obviously enjoy working there, it definitely added to the environment and experience as a whole having big smiles and a friendly atmosphere greeting me as I walked in. The piercing area is on the second floor, so I walked upstairs and started admiring the jewelry as I talked with the staff. I explained I was looking to get upgauged and they in turn explained it was relatively simple, would cause a minimum of discomfort, and essentially would be unnoticeable to anyone. I'd know though, and when it boils down to it, that was what mattered.
I was presented with the consent form and surrendered my driver's license for photocopying. Don't think because you know your artist they'll let you slide, I live with one and didn't hesitate to produce proper ID – this is their livelihood and you need to respect it. I read the form over and was surprised to see that a meal within the last four hours was required. Made sense to prevent low blood sugar blackouts, but surprised me in the sense that they were so thorough on the form. Note to all who follow me – eat, brush, and floss, THEN go to store! The paperwork now complete, we proceeded.
They sized out the new jewelry and escorted me back to one of the new piercing areas. I was seated in one of the new oversized chairs, the first set of gloves was donned and a quick once over was given to my existing labret. Dating a piercer, I had taken the time to brush my teeth, floss, and rinse with Listerine before I arrived. Keep it in mind folks, whatever you're getting pierced should be clean. Not only from a 'protect yourself from infection' standpoint but from a 'love your piercer' standpoint. Who wants to be working with some stinky piece of anatomy. Break down and wash it up before you go – it only shows that you have respect for your artist!
Passing inspection, I was given some additional mouth wash to rinse with and sat back into the chair. It's a big chair with funky footrests that don't allow your feet to hit the floor. I feel sorry for some of you shorter folks out there as your feet will probably be a good 2 feet off anything stable. The other downfall of the chairs is they are white. With all the stories I hear of people vomiting from piercing, the latent blood from some procedures, and generally dirty shoes, I would think that they would have opted for some other color, but hey – let's see how it works for them.
Luis did his wash ups and put on his second set of gloves, and opened the equipment and jewelry. Now, please don't harass me if this isn't the exact order that it should happen. I was looking around the room and not paying specific attention to every single detail. Now normally, I would encourage you to watch closely exactly what your piercer does, and be sure I did have one eye on him, but I know how anal Luis is about sterility and his work in general, so for me, I trusted him. After all, if it turned out bad, he'd have to deal with me complaining about it for the rest of our lives. Truly a threat!
He quickly and precisely removed my existing jewelry, and I suddenly had that feeling of loss/nudity that people have talked about on here that I never truly understood before. A quick sucking against the front of my lip proved I wasn't able to breathe through my lip yet, crushing my 'blowhole' fantasy, but more odd was the missing back piece of the jewelry. My mouth felt empty.
Not for long. As quickly as the old jewelry was removed the needle to stretch me was inserted. A tinge of pain shot through me, truly a shadow of the initial piercing but enough to send a sparkle to my eyes, and the new post was in place. The worst part of the whole procedure was when the stone was being screwed back on and it caught one of the hairs on my beard. Now that brought a tear to my eye!
No noticeable difference, but to me, I knew I had progressed. There was a slight dull ache to it from the procedure as a whole, but that lasted all of thirty minutes. I had been meeting up with friends and honestly, as soon as the first splash of vodka rolled over the site, it was like the jewelry had not changed at all.
It's been two days today and I've noticed it itches a little bit, but that's about all the inconvenience I've experienced. To you or anyone else – nothing's changed, to me, it's another step. Slowly and surely the lure of the metal is/has/will permeate me more, driving me to try new things. Subtlety the piercing has become more than something aesthetic, more an extension of me than a creation of a jeweler.
Sound like a foreign concept? Sound weird or 'new age'? I challenge you to try it for yourself. Take the first step and see, can you stop walking the path? Do you want to? I'm not sure what's next, but one thing I know is that I've just started down this very exciting course, and I'm truly looking forward to the experiences ahead.