At A Glance
Author	VonBourbon
Contact	VonBourbon@bme.anon
IAM	vonbourbon
When	Three months ago
Artist	Luke
Studio	Physical Poetry
Location	Leeds, UK

You know what? Let's skip the part where I relay why I wanted my cheeks pierced and skip to the good bit...

A few months ago I went to see Luke at Physical Poetry (http://www.physicalpoetry.com), in Leeds (UK). The upstairs studio is ornamented with tattoo-inspired artwork and all the artists have hefty portfolios. Luke's an awesome piercer; cool, confident and with a great reputation around town.

In-Studio Preparation
Cheek piercings are notoriously difficult to mark up because of their placement - there isn't much to align the marks against. I told Luke where I wanted them to sit and held myself as still and as straight as possible while he marked me up.

After much deliberating as to whether they were symmetrical or not, Luke attempted some facial geometry with a set of vernier calipers and some gentian violet. He first drew two vertical lines from the outer corner of each eye down my cheeks. Using the calipers he measured the distance from the corner of my mouth to the proposed piercing position on the vertical gentian violet line. He could then use this measurement to mark the piercing position on the other side of my face, marking where the caliper measurement intersected with the vertical line.

He wiped the unnecessary gentian violet lines from my face and stepped back once more to evaluate whether the marks were symmetrical. Ten minutes and several second opinions later we concluded that they were as symmetrical as they would ever be and that, thankfully, I had a symmetrical enough face for the geometry experiment to have worked.

The Piercings
I lay down during the piercing procedure. Luke first checked for veins by holding the area to be pierced tightly in a pair of clamps while shining a powerful light through the flesh. Having spent 20mins or so marking the piercings we were irritated to find there were two veins and a patch of capillaries where Luke had planned to pierce. We talked the options through and decided to pierce through the patch of capillaries as although this would mean my piercings would sit at different angles, it was the safest option.

As Luke needed to ensure he didn't hit the veins, he said he would pierce from the inside out. He used clamps to move my cheek away from my teeth, holding them with with his left hand, and he pierced my cheek using a needle blade, held in his right hand. To assist Luke to have a better view of what he was doing with the needle blade inside the dark recess of my mouth, Matt (the boyfriend initially dragged along in order to hold my hand) used the powerful torch light on his mobile phone to illuminate the inside of my cheek.

Just as Luke began to pierce the clamp slipped. He paused briefly while halfway through the piercing to realign the clamps and ensure he hit the exit mark.

It was a strange sensation; I could feel the needle sliding through the different tissue layers of my cheek. The initial stab came after a brief moment of tension against my skin. The needle popped through the first layer of tissue and I was aware of the needle puncturing a tough layer of skin. Following this there was a swift, smooth sensation, the needle in my flesh like a hot knife through butter. As the needle exited I experienced a similar feeling to the initial stab - a final, fast, sharp sensation and the needle was through. All of this sensation in a matter of seconds. Luke's smooth jewellery transfer followed and I had a 25mm bioflex labret stem through my cheek.

After checking for veins, Luke pierced the opposite side from the outside in. This piercing was much less problematic and caused similar sensations.

The aftercare
After leaving the studio I took 400mg of ibuprofen to assist with the swelling and discomfort. Despite this, my cheeks still puffed-up pretty quickly and 3 hours later I had a very achy jaw. 5 hours after the piercing I was feeling fatigued and very drained.

For the next 3 days I took 400mg of ibuprofen twice a day to try and help keep swelling to a minimum. Likewise for the 4 weeks following the piercings I cleaned the holes every day using salt water on both entrances and exits and used mouthwash to try and keep nasties inside my mouth to a minimum.

Day 2: My cheeks were a little more swollen, although 5mm of the labret stems were still visible when my face was relaxed. By the end of the day the achy jaw feeling from the previous day had subsided, but was replaced by a general tightness around each piercing and a much more dull, uncomfortable 'sore' feeling.
Day 3: I was even more swollen with only 3-4mm of the labret stems showing. I was less aware of the tightness, but still suffered from a dull ache and a much sharper pain when I smiled, stretching the area around the piercings. Eating was more uncomfortable than day 2.
Day 4: Again, more swollen and more uncomfortable. By this point I was so swollen that I couldn't see my smile lines when I grinned.
Day 5: Still very uncomfortable, especially when smiling, but the swelling had not increased any further. While cleaning the piercings in the morning I found that crusties had started appearing and the skin around the piercings was very pink.
End of Week 1: While cleaning the piercings in the morning I noticed lymph had started to ooze out of the holes. As a result, the 'crustiness' of the piercings increased and I found myself picking yellow crust off the piercing balls every couple of hours throughout the day. After following Luke's recommendations by squeezing around the piercing to assist my body with removing the fluid build-up, the awkward discomfort I had been suffering with all week subsided dramatically.
Day 12: The swelling noticeably began to go down, although the piercings were still very crusty. There was no more discomfort, even when I smiled!
End of Week 2: Although 5mm or so of the bar was visible when my face was relaxed, the whole length of the bar was still in use when I smiled.
Day 18: I noticed the 'dimples' were beginning to form around the piercings. The swelling had further reduced with 7mm or so of bar showing when I relaxed my face and 1-2mm showing when I was smiling. Again, the piercings were still crusty, but less so than the previous week.
End of Week 3: I cut the bars down for the first time, reducing their length by about 5mm. It proved very awkward to trim the bars accurately while they were still in the piercings, so I took them out to trim them down and re-thread them, trying to do this as swiftly as possible in order to try and prevent the piercings from being any more irritated than was necessary.
End of Wee