At A Glance Author asphyxia Contact rabidbutterfly666@hotmail.com When A year ago Artist Jessica Studio Aardvark Location Hamilton Ontario The Great Vertical Lip Piercing Experience
The tale of my vertical lip piercing begins on a winter's day in February of last year. I was at my then boyfriend's house that is a big fan of the body modifications and I was discussing with him how much I would love a vertical lip piercing. I was having a rough day as I had just been kicked out of my home and quit my job, not to mention being stranded at his place due to the weather. I was pretty down and when I'm down I like to get pierced. It helps release my inner pain.
So we called up to Aardvark in Hamilton and talked to Jessica the piercer, (who's super sweet by the way), and asked her if she could do a vertical lip piercing for me. She didn't know what one was so I explained to her it's where the piercing goes through the actual lip vertically, so there is nothing behind the lip. The barbell just sits inside. She said she had never done one before, but since I was a regular she would allow me to be her guinea pig. How exciting
So we drove down to Aardvark and on the way almost got killed in an accident due to a crazy cabbie. But nothing was going to stop me! When we arrived, I explained exactly what it was I wanted to her again and other piercer who was there knew exactly what it was. So I was glad someone who knew what they were doing in regards to my piercing was working.
She took me into the back of the shop and showed me all the sterilized needles and clamps. The procedure was explained to me in full detail and she discussed aftercare with me. After everything was clear she then told me to take a seat on the bench and lie back. I was so psyched. She placed the piercing area with a marker and looked at me from different angles making sure it was perfectly centered. Finally it was placed to my liking and we were ready to pierce.
She grabbed my lip with the clamps and made sure they were super tight so nothing would slip. At first the clamps were too large to hold my lip in place so she had to fool around for quite a bit to ensure the tightness. She then took the needle and slid it up through my lip. After this she slid in the barbell and we were finished. I was a little upset with the actual size of the barbell. I thought it was not quite so huge, but she explained to me the reason it was so large was to give the lip room to swell. Which made complete sense. She told me I could come back by the following week and she would replace it with a smaller barbell.
In order to keep the piercing clean I had to use sea salts and basically not touch the piercing with my unwashed hands. Cleaning was recommended often but not too often as one wouldn't want to irritate the piercing. It crusted up a lot and my lips got really chapped and swollen but it was well worth it. Often I would wake up in the night to clean the piercing. It seemed to be healing nicely, until about two weeks after I got the piercing done. A bump began to form underneath the pierced area and it was quite uncomfortable. I went back to Jessica and asked her what was happening. She checked out the area and realized that my lip was having an allergic reaction to the metal. Since I do have extremely sensitive skin.
I was crushed. The piercing had to be removed! My vertical lip could not be saved. I removed the barbell and felt like a piece of me had disappeared. I intended on getting the lip re-pierced but learned I was pregnant and had to wait until after I had the baby to get my lip re done, due to my immune system suffered heavily and the doctors as well as the piercing professionals felt the healing process would lack. Not wanting to put my child nor myself in jeopardy I waited.
>From this experience I have learned three important lessons. One being make sure you know what metals your body can handle. Second being the importance of aftercare and thirdly, make sure your piercer knows exactly how to do the procedure. In other news, I recently had given birth to my child 3 weeks ago and already am going next week to get my lip re-pierced with a different metal. I would recommend this piercing to anyone and would rate it a three out of ten in regards to pain factor.