On the 19th and 21st of June 2006, I removed my left and right lip rings, respectively. This was approximately 4 weeks after having them pierced, and the removal was unavoidable, as they had both become infected, my lip had swollen, and the rings were starting to cut into my lip. Although I was very disappointed at the time, I really have no one to blame but myself for the problems I encountered, as I didn't wait nearly long enough before kissing again after having my lip pierced. Having said that, if I had known then what I do now, I would have opted to have labret studs as the initial jewellery, which would have stopped them from cutting through my lip in the same way as the rings did. Despite this, I promised myself I would be much more careful next time.
At A Glance Author archon_113 Contact archon_113@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Don't know his name Studio Cambridge Piercing Studio Location Cambridge, England My piercer told me I would need to wait 3 months before having the piercings redone, but being as impatient as I am, I couldn't go all that time without having any lip piercings, so I waited 4 weeks until the 14th of July and got myself a central labret piercing, lower down than the lip rings were. This satisfied me for a while, but round about the beginning of August I started to think of how I could get the two side lip piercings redone sooner. After a short while pondering I decided I was going to get them repierced before the 3 months was up, but slightly further away from the centre of my lip than the first two had been, so as to avoid piercing through the scar tissue. I talked this over with my piercer, and he said it would be absolutely fine to do this, as the initial piercings looked like they had healed up very nicely.
So on the 10th of August, off I went to the Cambridge Piercing Studio, ticked all the boxes to confirm that I don't have any serious health problems, paid my £45 (I got a £5 discount for having them both done on the same day), and followed the man with rather large stretched lobes (this is the second time he's pierced me and I still didn't find out his name) into the operating theatre-like room towards the back of the building. As has happened with all of my previous oral piercings, I was given some rather suspicious tasting purple liquid with which to rinse out my mouth, and then asked to take a seat. I opted to face away from the mirror that was covering one wall of the room, as I thought that watching a needle being pushed through my skin might be slightly unsettling. At this stage I wasn't feeling at all nervous, as I seem to have become more confident with each new piercing I've had (these two being my twelfth and thirteenth), but I think the piercer was trying to make me more relaxed by telling me about a scary looking goth whose nose he'd pierced, causing said goth to cry uncontrollably and cover his clothes with eyeliner and mascara. By the time he'd finished laughing, my piercer had set up all of his equipment and was ready to start marking up my lip.
Now this took longer than it ever has before for me, as we found that the scars from the first two lip piercings weren't entirely symmetrical, which made it extremely difficult to line up the new ones. I spent at least half hour in the room, which is 25 minutes longer than I had done the first time, but it was worth it to get them symmetrical, as they are now. Thankfully the piercer was very patient with me, and didn't show any signs of getting annoyed, as I know I would have if someone had asked me to make tiny adjustments to the placement of a piercing over and over again for about 10 minutes. Something that surprised me was that he then took the end off the pen and dipped a small metal instrument into the ink, which he used to mark my lip on the inside. This seems like a very good idea, especially as it was important for him to avoid the scar tissue in my lip, and it might be something that will catch on with more piercers, to help avoid crooked piercings.
The actual piercings didn't take long at all, but I found them a lot more painful than the first ones had been. I think this showed on my face, as the piercer kept asking me if I was alright, but I'm used to the pain of piercings enough now not to let it bother me too much. I braced myself again for the second piercing and breathed a sigh of relief when the needle was through my lip, knowing that in only a few moments I would have 3 great looking lip piercings. I was a little bit worried that the new bars would be as long as my initial labret stud had been, making them stick out of the front of my face a few millimetres, but they seemed a pretty good fit straight away. 10 days later this turned out to be a bad thing, as I had to go back and have them replaced with slightly longer bars, owing to the swelling, but this was done free of charge so I didn't mind too much.
3 weeks later I made the rather foolish decision to take the studs out and replace them with 12mm BCRs, but I soon realised my mistake when I woke up the next morning with a considerably larger bottom lip. I put the longer studs back in and the swelling went down within a few hours, and I plan to change them back to the shorter studs soon and then keep them in for at least a couple of months.
A few things I've learned from this experience are that you should not ignore the aftercare advice given to you with oral piercings, especially the part about not having other people's bodily fluids in your mouth until the piercings are healed, and also that labret studs are much better for healing than BCRs. When my lip swelled up after the second piercings, I think that I may have had some problems had I opted for BCRs again, but this was avoided, thanks to the decreased pressure that was being put on my lip by the studs. My lip is now not swollen at all and is healing well, and I'm definitely going to be more patient this time, as I refuse to lose these piercings again.