It's weird, because I'd really never been a big fan of lip piercings. My cousin had three – two rings and then a labaret in the centre, and I really, really didn't like them. They just seemed so big and heavy and ugly, and well, definitely not my thing. However, I saw a guy with one, much smaller, and it kind of made me curious.
At A Glance Author D. Contact D.@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Hailey Studio Strange City Location Edmonton, AB I already had a cartilage piercing, and an extra lobe piercing, both on my right ear, so I wasn't too concerned with it hurting very much. I floated the idea with a couple of my friends, all of whom said "do it do it do it," so, I finally decided that yeah, I'd get it done.
I got both of my previous piercings at Strange City, so it just made sense to head back there. I said I wanted to get my lip pierced, and they asked if now was good, which you know, it really was. Hailey took me into the back room, disinfected me, and drew the little dot where she thought it would look good.
It was probably the least painful out of all the piercings I've done – it really didn't hurt much at all, although I found the clamp somewhat uncomfortable. Hailey was great going over the aftercare with me – told me where I could buy distilled water for dirt cheap and how much sea-salt to put in it, how often to clean it, that yes, I had to swig salt-water every time I ate for two weeks.
The ring she put in initially was quite big, to allow for the way my lip would swell up. The swelling was actually quite minimal, and there was very little pain. My main issues were that I accidentally bit down on the ring while eating once or twice, which was *unbelievably* painful, and I had the unfortunate habit of 'dribbling' whenever I drank anything.
After two weeks, I stopped swigging the saline solution, which was nice. It actually wasn't that bad to do the rinsing, what with 1 teaspoon of salt to litre of water, it was mainly the spitting out that was frustrating. I'd be snacking in class and then have the choice of either swallowing the salt water or spitting into a cup. I ended up just munching and then holding off on the rinse until I could actually leave the classroom and spit into the watering fountain. That seemed to work okay, as I had no infection or anything.
I went to Los Angeles for a couple days, and initially I'd been worried that something horrible would happen (I'm paranoid that way) but the worst thing was that I was smiling so much all the time because I was having a fabulous time, and it tugged at the ring and made it kind of sore some of the time.
By week three it was pretty much completely healed. I went back in to get the ring downsized a little earlier than the four-week time frame they had said because it was really completely healed to the point where I could tug on it and it didn't hurt at all. I'm pretty sure the original ring they had in there was a 14-gauge. I wanted a smaller ring, but most importantly I wanted a seamless one. They didn't have any in 16-gauge, so I sized down even smaller to an 18. I was actually really happy with that, because I wanted a very small, subtle ring.
She fitted it up and put it in for me, which was fantastic, and it looked great. The only thing was that two weeks later, the dentist made me take it out for an X-ray! I managed to get the ring out by myself, but getting it back in took me a good ten minutes. Not only that, but I couldn't close it in the way. I had some running around to do on Whyte Avenue anyway, so I stopped in at Strange City and asked if they could fix it for me.
Ryan wasn't busy, so he took me back into a room and closed the ring for me, which was fantastic.
My dentist had me swigging hydrogen peroxide to prevent infection (I need to get my wisdom teeth taken out sometime soon). That was fine at first, but eventually it started drying out the piercing so I left it for a couple days and it went back to normal. I then lost the syringe and that was it for the hydrogen peroxide, which is good, because that stuff is really nasty. I wouldn't have done it if the piercing hadn't already been healed, but it didn't seem to do to much damage to the healed ring.
I ended up going back about a month later because I needed to put a CBR in it; I had a citizenship interview in the US coming up, and I wanted to make myself look "mainstream" (I think my pink hair offended them last time). So I needed a ring I could take out and put back in on my own. I also cut off my mohawk, which made me sad, but that's another story.
Getting the CBR was actually more painful than the original piercing. It was 16 gauge, and it took a while to get it into the 18 gauge hole. It was really sore for a couple days after that, but after a while I got used to it. Taking it out for the interview a couple days later sucked, because once again it was really painful to get it in, and I had to do it by myself, but I managed. About a week later, I was able to take the ring out and put it back in without any pain at all (I had to removed it for a passport photo).
Back in Canada, today I went in and Ryan put my seamless ring back in for me. It looks good, no pain obviously, as I was going back down to the 18 gauge ring. I was really thrilled with my experience. Strange City is a great place for piercings, I really like all of the piercists who have helped me out, and the ring looks and feels fantastic.