FIRST TIME ROUND
At A Glance Author the_girl_spec Contact the_girl_spec@bme.anon When Two years ago Artist old lady @PP, Kimmee @ Off Ya Tree Studio Off Ya Tree Location Brisbane, Queensland, Australia After successfully healing my labret in 2002 and ignoring the lure of facial piercings I was stuck by the NEED of a new piercing in 2004. Normally I would have gone to my usual shop in Brisbane Off Ya Tree but I was stuck in the kitsch plastic surrounds of the Gold Coast and broke. Steered by nasty fortune I went to Pierced and Proud - one of the numerous studios packed into the strip of Surfers. FIRST MISTAKE - Should have gone to somewhere I felt comfortable. For $100 including jewelry the piercer and I agreed to two lip piercings, flanking my labret.
Money changed hands and she picked out the jewellry. Two 8mm posts with incredibly slim backs. Thinking they were a little on the small side I decided that the piercer knows best and was determined not to leave the shop without shiny metal.
Into the piercing studio. Not a separate room such as Off Ya Tree but a curtained off area in full view of the shop. She got me to sit down and started to mark me up. After about 3 tries we all decided that they were symmetrical with my labret and my lips/face in general. Clamps come out of a cupboard, along with plastic bags. They look like the type that you put fruit in to buy at Coles. She covers the clamps with the plastic bags and proceeds to clamp the first spot. I think she was wearing gloves...but memory of this is hazy. No warning to breathe in breath out, or a count of three just bang needle through my lip and then fiddling with the jewelry. After a couple of tries she gets the ball screwed on. Repeat process for the other side.
This has taken about half an hour at this point and its getting late in the night and was past the shop's closing time. She looked at my face and said "All done, you obviously have experience healing lip piercings (referring to my labret at this point) so I won't bother with the healing sheets. You know what to do. Enjoy your night."
What I then proceeded to do didn't help matters one single bit. I can't stand the Gold Coast but was out for a friend's gig...The Tremors and The Grates. I gave up on the no smoking policy after about half an hour being in a club FULL of smoke. The drinking started about half an hour after that - being that inebriated is about the only way to DEAL with the Gold Coast. And then quite possibly I may have acquired myself a very pretty boy to keep me company for the weekend who in the end caused even more pain than the piercings, but that's another story.
Stuck out in the sticks for the weekend for counting work all I could put my hands on to relieve my poor poor swollen fish lip was frozen slurpees delivered by our roaming and quite confused supervisor. None of this was appropriate aftercare and I wouldn't recommend doing anything the same as I have done.
FAST FORWARD TO MONDAY MORNING
With a HUGE lip I shuffled back to Brisbane and first stop was Off Ya Tree to deliver myself into Simon and Kimmee's hands. By that point the backs had sunk into my lip and had almost disappeared. Simon shook his head at me and sent me into the back room with Kimmee and she re-pierced the holes to retrieve my posts. And replaced them with 12mm posts instead. So my cheap piercings where somewhat more expensive then I expected.
HEALING
After that they healed up quite quickly, minus a visit made at full speed into a glass door which left me to walk around for another week with fish lips. The right one never really healed properly, due to a unconscious habit of chewing on the back of it. I lost them a year ago, almost to the day by hosptializing myself and needing emergency surgery. I had a stand off with the nurses which went - Take out your piercings. I don't wanna. Take out your piercings. I don't wanna. Take out your piercings or we'll have to cut them out after you go under. Fine *pout* . (I'm never my best when drunk/bleeding profusely)
CLOSED UP, RE-PIERCED AND RE-PIERCED
They closed up by the time I was awake again with a huge cast on my hand and I couldn't leave the hospital to go to the studio to get them to put all my jewelry back in. They didn't discharge me for 4 days. But I'll take loss of most of my piercings over being able to have full mobility of my dominate hand. Ever since then I've felt somewhat naked without them so I had them re-pierced not once but twice since then as I can't seem to keep them for more than a year without requiring so form of surgery. The last set fell victim to my dentist and wisdom teeth surgery aged 8 months. I wonder how long they are going to last this time?