At A Glance Author aniorange Contact aniorange@bme.anon IAM aniorange When Five years ago Studio 23rd Street Body Piercing Location Oklahoma City, OK. In my last story I told of how I moved to Oklahoma and found a new place to get pierced. I was very pleased with the shop that I had found. I decided I wanted to revive previously pierced smiley and 23rd Street Body Piercing was the place to do it. My fiancé and I made plans for the hour and a half trip to Oklahoma City.
I had always loved the look of this piercing since I first saw it on BME. As you can see in the other smiley story, it was done by someone who was piercing a smiley for the first time. I had plenty of confidence in Robert's abilities, but after it looked as if it was migrating sideways, I was disappointed. I did not hold Robert responsible; I knew it was his "first time." I figured it was an honest mistake.
With my newfound confidence of 23rd Street Body Piercing, I thought I would ask them to give it a try. We checked in at the counter and I told the nice lady what I wanted. They recommended I pierce it at 16-gauge captive bead ring, but I asked to have it done with 14-gauge cbr. They told me no problem with that request and got the jewelry ready. I do not remember if they had to autoclave it or not. They usually had things autoclaved before hand and ready to go, but every now and then they did not. I told her I had it done before and it went crooked and I took it out. She made out a receipt and I paid up sat down on one of their comfy sofas.
Just a little while later I was called into the back by one of the piercers. Once again, I do not remember whom. I quickly told them my story about how I had it done before but it went crooked. I guess I felt it necessary to tell him so that he would make an extra point to get it straight. He had me wash my mouth out with some kind of mouthwash and lay back on their bed table thing. He put some gloves on and had everything laid out and ready to go. As usual the place was sparkling clean.
He pulled back my upper lip and took a look at what he was up against. I suspect it was no big deal. I was getting fearful that this might hurt bad. I have a bad tendency to do that before a piercing. I guess it is part of the Invincibility Complex. I just wanted to get it over with. It seemed to take a while for my piercer to do anything. He was still getting things in order I suppose. He then approached me again, lifting up my lip. If I remember correctly he used some clamps to flip my lip back to keep it out of the way. Then he just freehanded the piercing. Before I knew it, he had the needle though and was getting the jewelry. I was surprised how little I felt. I then remember how very, very little it hurt last time. Just like before, I felt almost nothing. The piercer put the jewelry in, snapped things up, and had me to look at it in the mirror. I made a big smile, and I loved it. My favorite piercing was back!
Before we left I stuck a few dollars in the tip jar for the piercer. I was starting to feel the usual rush and excitement of getting a new piercing. On the way out, it felt like other people where looking at me trying to figure out what I had gotten pierced. I just smiled, real big. My fiancé and I jumped in the car and headed home. I wanted to shout out the window, but I did not know what. I love the feeling I get after I am pierced. It's such a rush, and it had been too long.
I was given the rather simple instructions of keeping it clean with Biotene. Biotene is an alcohol free mouthwash. The lack of alcohol makes it better for healing a piercing. For the next three days or some, my upper lip and the area behind my septum was rather sore. I kept it clean as best I could, rinsing after every meal, every pop, and every drink except water. Eating was no big deal, usually. Chips could be a little tough, or anything really crunchy. If whatever it was poked up between my teeth and lip where the smiley was, my nervous system would respond with a quick sharp pain. Licking any loose food out from up there was challenging too for the first few days. It was a bit painful to move foreign objects out of the way, especially since there was one foreign object that was not going anywhere. It healed up nicely. After about 3 days the soreness started to fade. All of the other problems faded along with it.
I kept smiling at myself in the mirror just to see it. I found it was also interesting to play with, which took attention away from my tongue piercing. At first the piercing looked great. Every so often it looked like it may be a little off to one side, but usually my mouth was dry and if I drank some water it would straighten up. I also like for the ball in the captive bead ring to show at the bottom. I guess I was a little obsessive about it. All I could think of where the pictures of smiley I saw on BME.
After a couple of months though I did notice it seemed that it was going crooked again. I was rather worried. I decided that maybe I could migrate it back. I started pushing it to the other side of my lip and holding there as long as I could remember. That part of my lip that was not accustom to holding the ring started to get a little sore. I also noticed that this piercing did need some extra care. I had to make it a point to brush it every so often with my toothbrush to keep it clean.
A few more months went by and my attempt to push it back to center was not working. It was just causing me a lot of headache, and lip ache. I hated to give it up but I was not happy with the way it looked. I hated the idea of smiling and it was off center. I hesitantly removed the ring and put it away with some of my other jewelry. Once again I was disappointed that things did not want to work out. I guess I had to accept that this one was just not for me. Or was it?