| At A Glance | |
| Author | wolfbane |
| Contact | wolfbane@bme.anon |
| IAM | wolfbane |
| When | Six months ago |
| Artist | Mac |
| Studio | Punctured |
| Location | Cardiff Tattoo Convention |
Excellent; the following weekend was the second Cardiff Tattoo Convention and now I could get some work done.
I drove down to Cardiff on the Saturday morning and amazed myself by finding the Bay and a space to park near Techniquest. I then headed over to the convention which was at the Coal Exchange and wandered around a bit just taking it all in. It was really nice to be back at a convention again; my last one had been the first London convention almost a year before, and it was great seeing similarly modded people wandering around enjoying themselves and getting work done. I already knew that I wanted to get something done and while I would have loved a tattoo I couldn't really afford it, didn't have any definite design and would rather go to my artist back in Aberdare for any big work. Wandering around I found two piercing booths. I'd been toying with getting my cheeks pierced for a while; I really liked the way that they looked and I wanted some more facial piercings to balance out the ones that I already had. Trouble was I also wanted to get my bridge redone. I'd had it pierced the year before but as I worked in a school I had to change it to a retainer far, far before it was ready and ended up losing it as a result. I found that I really missed having my bridge pierced, and also had a lump of scar tissue that was, while small, noticeable to me. If I got my bridge repierced I'd be happy because I'd have my beloved piercing back, and the scar tissue wouldn't be noticeable.
But I also really, really wanted my cheeks pierced.
While I was trying to decide what I wanted pierced I ummed and aahed between the two booths for a good half hour or so. Price wise they were both pretty similar, so I looked at the photos and videos each booth had and finally decided that I'd go with Mac, who works out of the Punctured Body Piercing Studio in Devon. As I walked up to him to have a chat about the piercings I still hadn't decided what I wanted to get done. We had a chat about both the bridge and the cheek piercings and after weighing them up I decided on the cheeks. I'd had the bridge, and I loved it, and I would definitely be getting it done again, but for the moment I wanted to see what pierced cheeks would look like.
After agreeing to come back in about 15 minutes I nipped to the bank around the corner to get some money out. Walking through the sreets by the Coal Exchange I saw what seemed, for Cardiff, like hordes of modded people. It was great.
I got back to the convention and headed straight for Mac's booth. Walking behind the curtain separating the piercing area from the rest of the convention hall I was excited and nervous at the same time. I dropped my bags on the floor and hopped up onto the bed, chatting to Mac about placement and the possibility of repiercing the surface bars I'd had to remove a few months earlier. Once he had all his equipment sorted out we got on to working out where the best place for my cheek piercings would be. Simplest way to do that was for my to open my mouth as wide as possible and push; where my teeth were was a no go, where I could push the sides of my cheeks in was where I wanted the piercings. Once I had a rough idea of where they'd go Mac measured the distance from both the centre of my lip and the edge of my mouth to where I wanted the piercings, and marked both cheeks. Checking them in the mirror I decided looked pretty much perfect, and hopped back onto the bed.
Mac asked me if I wanted to sit up or lie down to get the piercings done. I honestly didn't mind so lay down with my hands resting by my sides. Mac adjusted the light he had on the table next to the bed and checked that I was ok and ready to go ahead. I opened my mouth as wide as possible (quite an odd experience, lying on a bed with a stranger leaning over me, peering into my mouth and holding a needle in one hand. Well, odd considering he's not a dentist) and as I breathed out felt the needle go through my cheek. I don't think it hurt that much; certainly I don't remember it hurting so it couldn't have been as bad as my nipples or my nose. I lay there (drooling) as Mac put the stud in and removed the cannula.
Tightening the ball on the end of the jewellery meant holding the back of the stud with one hand and screwing the ball on with the other. I honestly can't remember if it felt comfortable or painful, but once the ball was screwed on it seemed to sit very close to my skin, close enough that it didn't seem like there was any room for the piercing to breathe properly. In fact you couldn't see the stem of the stud at all. Mac hmmed for a minute then said 'It's a bit short but you shouldn't have any problems.' At that point I should have said something. Short bars or studs in new piercings are usually a bad, bad idea because the piercing swells up and can take some time to go down again. You need jewellery that will accomodate that and give the piercing time to heal. Jewellery that's too big can be downsized, but if it's too small it can cause problems. As I later found out. However, like an idiot, I didn't say anything. Instinctively I knew that something wasn't quite right, but instead of questioning the piercer I let it go, thinking that because he had more experience than me he'd know what was best.
With one down and one to go I lay on the bed as I waited for Mac to get ready to pierce the other cheek. I couldn't really feel the piercing in my right cheek. It felt a bit tingly, as most fresh piercings do, but it didn't hurt and I couldn't feel the back of the stud unless I stuck my tongue into my cheek, which I wasn't planning on doing with a fresh piercing.
After a couple of minutes Mac was ready to do the other side. I lay on the bed, still facing the same way which meant that Mac had to lean over me to get to my left cheek. After checking I was ready Mac pushed the needle through my cheek, then stood up saying he just had to get the stud from the bowl on the table next to me. Thinking it would be a good time to take a breath I closed my mouth, breathed in and felt air rushing in through the side of my mouth; I had completely forgotten the cannula in my cheek and got a bit of a shock. Mac turned back to me, inserted the jewellery and screwed on the ball, and then I could finally sit up and admire my new piercings.
Sitting on the edge of the bed I looked in the mirror and was pretty pleased with what I saw. The balls, at 5mm, were a bit bigger than I had hoped for (preferring 4 mm) but those could be downsized once my piercing had healed up. I was a bit worried that the balls were sitting very close to my skin, creating a bit of a dimple, but I decided to go against my instincts and trust what Mac had said - after all he had been piercing for longer than I'd been getting them...
That night I drove back to Bath, eager to show off my new piercings. I arrived at my book group at about seven thirty and shocked everyone with my new metal. Surprisingly the piercings hurt very little, although laughing until tears rolled down my face for most of the night did leave me with sore cheeks the next day
Looking after the piercings was pretty easy. As with most of my piercings I bathed them in sea salt twice a day and then just left them to it; not touching them, not playing with them. And for a while they were fine.
Not long after I'd had the piercing done though, I started to get problems with the left one. At first it was tenderness and swelling around the area, so I kept up the sea salt soaks and otherwise left it alone. But as time went on it got worse and worse; what looked like and felt like a blister formed around the piercing and no matter what I did I couldn't get rid of it. Salt soaks weren't working and the worse the lump got the worse I felt about it. It started to affect my confidence a bit as whenever and whereever I went I was aware of this slowly turning purple lump just behind my shiny cheek piercing.
After a couple of weeks of trying sea salt soaks and failing I decided that if it was a blister I could try and lance it. Having some small, sterile play piercing needles at home I sat in the bathroom one day, gloves on and lanced the blister. A combination of blood and pus seeped out and the blister went down. Success. I flushed the wound (for want of a better word) with warm sea salty water and kept it clean. A few days later though, the blister was back. Again I lanced it and again it returned a few days later. I was getting desparate; I didn't want to lose my piercing but nothing I was trying was working. In the end I went to see my doctor, hoping that she could help. She took a look at the piercing and said that it might be infected or it might be an abscess and gave me a week's supply of antibiotics.
After a week passed, then another, I had to accept that the antibiotics hadn't worked. My cheek hurt and it looked absolutely awful. I didn't want to retire it but had no other choise so, on November 29, two days short of three months after getting it done, I went to a friend's studio in Bath to have the piercing removed.
As I walked through the door I was greeted by Mike and Laura, who I've been friends with for years.
Straight away I could tell he wasn't happy with either of the piercings. In fact, on looking at the right one I think his exact words were 'Fucking hell.' I scowled in reply. He started off by deciding to remove the left piercing and replace it with a longer bar; while it didn't look anywhere near as bad as the right cheek the post was still far too short, and by getting that one out of the way first it'd be easier than having me in pain with a freshly changed right piercing while trying to remove the left.
To cut a long story slightly shorter, it was a complete fiasco. Mike tried to remove the post by unscrewing it with his hands, but he couldn't get the ball off, no matter what he did. In the end Mike had to use two pairs of pliers to remove the jewellery from my cheek; one holding the back of the post inside my mouth, the other holding the ball on the outside. It hurt, but thankfully Mike managed to remove the left piercing fairly quickly. After unscrewing it and pulling the post out of my cheek we both had a shock; the post I'd been pierced with was 13mm long, barely longer than the post I had in my labret, and certainly not long enough to be put in a fresh piercing. To say I was gobsmacked was an understatement, and furious really didn't describe the way I felt. Mike cleaned the outside of my cheek as some pus from the piercing had oozed out but the left cheek wasn't in any way as bad as the right, and once the pus had come out and been cleaned up Mike agreed that he could put a longer, PTFE, bar in there and attach 4mm balls on the end. He cut the PTFE to length, and warning me that it might sting a bit, pushed it through the original hole and screwed the ball on the end. A bit red, but definitely feeling happier, the piercing looked okay.
That was the easy part though. We knew from removing the left post (externally cross threaded) that the right one would be hard work, especially given that it was the most painful piercing and was causing me a fair bit of misery. Not bothering to try removing it with just his hands Mike again grabbed the pliers; one on the back of the post and one on the ball, and turned them.
Nothing.
He tried again, adjusting his hold on the pliers. This time I yelped.
He paused. 'Not going very well is it?' I joked, trying to lighten the mood. Mike looked at me.
The relief was immediate. Partly because all of the pressure that had been put on my cheek due to the post being too short had gone, but partly because, in the process of twisting off the ball, Mike had semi-popped the abscess that had been festering under my skin. Blood and pus were everywhere, including all over Mike's pliers and my face but at least the ball was off.
Mike pulled the post out of my cheek and told me to take a look in the mirror. I jumped off the bed and crossed the room to be faced with a 5mm round, rather deep, hole in my cheek. There had been so much pressure on the piercing that the ball had started to sink into my cheek, creating even more problems with the abscess that was already growing there. I was completely speechless, very upset and bloody furious. My cheek looked absolutely horrible and I knew without question that I would have a horrible scar which would take ages to heal.
'Fuck.' I said, 'Is there anything you can do? Any chance you can put a longer post in and it'll heal?' I was grasping at straws but I really didn't want to lose the piercing or walk around with this huge hole in my cheek. I could tell from the look on Mike's face that he wasn't happy with it, but he said he'd give it a go with a 20mm PTFE bar and a 4mm ball and see what that looked like. Again I jumped back on the bed while Mike cleaned up the right side of my face. He cut another piece of PTFE, threaded it through the hole made by the piercing (which hurt far more than the left hand side had) and screwed on a 4mm ball. Which promptly sank into the hole in my face.
'I'm sorry hun, there's no way you're walking out of the shop like that.'
Covering up the wound on my cheek with a non stick pad I trailed downstairs after Mike. Laura gave me a hug as I entered the shop and let me rant a bit about the piercing that had gone wrong.
That was just over five months ago and, while the scar on my cheek isn't as bad now as it was, it's still pretty visible. I've been massaging it with Palmer's cocoa butter each day, and that helped with the swelling a lot, but the discolouration is still there and I know from experience that can take a long time to go away.
The PTFE bar I've got in the left piercing at the moment is 18mm long, and while it fit perfectly for the first few months after I got the original piercing replaced, it's time for it to be downsized a bit. I will be getting my right cheek repierced but as I've just passed my bike test and am wearing a helmet every day it's going to be a good few months before I'm able to get it redone.
The whole experience was painful, frustrating and upsetting, but it has taught me something; just because someone's been piercing for a long time doesn't mean that they do everything right all the time. I knew that I should have said something about the length of the posts when I got pierced, but didn't because I felt that the piercer would have taken offence, or that I was wrong about what I thought. I wasn't, and if I'd trusted my instincts I wouldn't be sitting here with a piercing in one cheek and a scar on the other.
Both cheek piercings before the right one started to play up.
'I don't know if they'll help,' she said. 'If it's still there in a week's time you'll have to take it out.'
I left the surgery hoping that the antibiotics would work.
'How're you hun?' she asked after giving me a hug.
'Not good,' I replied. 'I need to get this taken out.'
With Laura looking after me sympathetically I trailed after Mike up the stairs into his studio.
'I'm really not happy with either of them,' I said, 'but I want to try and keep them if I can. I think the left one just needs a longer post, but it's the right I'm worried about. I've done everything I can think of but it's just not healing.'
Mike reassured me by saying he'd take a look and do the best he could so reluctantly I jumped on the bed while he snapped on a pair of gloves to take a look.
'I'll give it one more go, but if I can't get it out you're going to have to go to the hospital and get it cut out. It's stuck.'
Great. Not only had I has to put up with a piercing that hurt like hell, I might be faced with getting it cut out of my face. I was not happy. We braced ourselves for a final go though and as Mike twisted the pliers and I grimaced in pain the ball came off.
I nodded. It had been a bit of a long shot, and I had hoped I could have kept the piercing, but deep down I knew that the best chance I had was to let my cheek heal up and get it repierced later on.
Close up of the scar on my cheek
Taken a couple of days ago the scar is still very noticeable.