By the age of 18, I'd gotten 9 piercings – a conch, daith, 4 lobes (2 of them stretched to 8mm), two helixes and my nostril. I pretty much had a craving for more, and decided I wanted some oral piercings. I thought I'd get two lip piercings, one on each side of my lower lip. I was so excited, but thought I'd do them one at a time – the safer option, I thought.
At A Glance Author clarity. Contact clarity.@bme.anon When A year ago Studio Blue Banana Location Cardiff I don't like getting piercings done in company much, so I went by myself to Blue Banana in Cardiff. This was my first mistake I reckon, all my other piercings were done at Needleworks in Birmingham – I have never had any problems here. But as I was at university at the time (I'm training to be a doctor, ironically) I went to Blue Banana. The piercing passed without event, apart from it being easily the most painful yet. They put in a really long bar, which at the time I thought was excessive but in hindsight, wasn't. I loved it.
It healed up fine to start with, and I could touch it without pain. It didn't make any pus and I was really pleased, it looked really good! I was really proud of it and could barely wait to get the other side done to match. However, 3 weeks later, it swelled a little. No worries I thought, all my piercings have done this, it'll go down in a few days. At this point I should probably mention that I have Crohn's disease, and because of this have to take an immunosuppressant drug called Azathioprine. This means I can't fight infection as easily as a normal person. So, because of this, the swelling did not go down. I bathed it with TCP and salt water but nothing helped. It started to make me feel really, really ill. I had a fever and was nauseated, I couldn't eat. Stupidly, I still did nothing – I hadn't told my parents about this piercing and didn't know what their reaction would be. By this point, the piercing inside my lip was surrounded by a large white ulcer, and outside by red and yellow scabs. It looked horrible. When it got to the point that I couldn't walk to university to hand in an essay because I felt that dreadful, I finally went to the doctors. I explained how ill it was making me feel, and she advised leaving the piercing in place and administered a course of flucloxicillin (antibiotics for skin infection), which I took, and still nothing happened. I didn't know what to do then, it was getting worse everyday and my lip was 3 times its normal size.
At this point, I called my parents who came to Cardiff and took me home. I wasn't as berated as I expected for getting the piercing, it was the leaving it so long in that state that they weren't impressed with. I went back to the doctor in Birmingham, who was incredibly rude and obviously had no sympathy for this 'self inflicted' injury. I have since complained to the practise manager about this (do not put up with rudeness from doctors! Trust me!) He told me to take the piercing out. I was reluctant because I heard that abscesses could form this way, but did as I was told. By this point I hadn't eaten in over a week.
Another course of antibiotics later, the swelling finally started to subside. There was still a huge ulcer inside my mouth, and an open sore on the outside that was making yellow pus everyday. I had tonsillitis, acute ulcerative gingivitis and oral thrush, all as a result of infection. I couldn't go out looking like that; I couldn't drive as I felt too light headed. I couldn't even brush my teeth as I got a mouthful of blood whenever I tried, and a huge amount of pain due to the gingivitis. I think overall I had to take 5 courses of antibiotics, and I was on about 20 tablets a day, including oral steroids, which are fairly hardcore medication. My mouth was bleeding constantly. In the end, I didn't eat for almost 3 weeks and lost over a stone in weight. I had to take 2 weeks off university and I can honestly say I have not felt that ill in a long time. Please, please, if you cannot fight infection for whatever reason, reconsider an oral piercing – there is so much bacteria in your mouth this kind of thing I see now is inevitable. I got away lightly; this easily could have become septicaemia. If you have problems, get it seen to straight away. I have been left with a scar on my outside lip which is still sore, and a fibrous scar mass inside my lower lip. These can present problems to this day, almost a year later.