I had been thinking about getting a new piercing for a couple of months. I go to an old fashioned music conservatory in the classical music department, and I find that nothing says fuck you to all the old Dutch stuffed shirts like a couple of well-placed pieces of metal in your face. Don't get me wrong, I love classical music, but I absolutely hate the 'look sophisticated or else' approach that is taken to it. I am so far the only person in the classical department to have any facial piercings whatsoever, and all I have is a very small nose ring and the new stud under my lip that I am writing about.
At A Glance Author viola Contact viola@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Tony Studio Kerkstraat piercing/tattoo Location Amsterdam So about a month ago, I went pretty much on a whim to my favorite piercing place in Amsterdam to get a small stud below my lip, like a Monroe piercing UNDER my lip instead of above it. The piercer (whose name I never actually got, but I'll call him Tony because he was Italian) was very knowledgable and experienced. The piercing itself went extremely well. Tony marked the spot, then clamped and pierced it all in one clean motion. It was a bit painful, but not unbearably so. It was comparable to getting anaesthesia from the dentist. He inserted the post, screwed on the ball, and voila! A new piercing for me! I immediately loved it. I followed the aftercare instructions (anti-bacterial soap and diluted Listerine), and for the first few days, it was healing so well that people didn't even notice that it was new.
That is, until I rode my bicycle.
The third or fourth day after I got pierced, I was riding my bike to a friend's house when I felt the post loose in my mouth. Shit. I pulled over, shoved the post back into my piercing the other way around, and tried looking for the lost ball. It was no use. Looking for a tiny metal ball on a bike path in the dark is as bad as trying to find a needle in a haystack. It was too late at night to go to a piercing shop to get a new ball, so I panicked. I parked my bike and walked around to find some sort of shop with body jewelry. Luckily for me, there was a cheap souvenir shop not too far away that provided me with a ball. Granted, it was way too big and looked absolutely hideous, but it was good enough for the time being. Later that night, I switched the ball with one of the balls on my nipple barbell, which was thankfully the same gauge. I looked normal again. Crisis averted.
After that however, it became quite infected. I had to clean it dozens of times a day in order to not look absolutely disgusting. It was red, swollen, and pussing like mad. But after about a week of taking really good care of it (warm salt water, following the aftercare instructions to the letter) it became almost normal again.
I decided to get the post changed, because it felt much too long, and the piercer told me to get change it quickly to avoid gum recession. Post changed, no harm done. I went to Berlin later that week to visit an old flame of mine, because hey, who doesn't want a nice weekend in a great city full of sex, right? Wrong. After alot of really furious making out, I started to noticed a dull throb underneath my lip. I shrugged it off. But after a couple of days (involving alot of ... uh... action) I noticed that the piercing had swollen up, and that the new shortened post had started to recede and cut into my lip. Not good. Again, the piercing became quite infected, red, pussing, and whatnot, along with quite a bit of pain from the rather deep cut in my lip. I tried to remove the piercing, but it was so swollen and painful that I couldn't even begin to unscrew the ball. When the pain became too unbearable, I finally went to a piercing shop in Berlin, where the woman behind the counter managed to remove it (after about 15 minutes of trying different methods) and replaced the post with a much longer one.
Since then, the cuts inside my lip have healed, but I am reluctant to change the post again. But in any case, I absolutely love this piercing, however high-maintenance it might be.
Moral of this story: Make sure your balls are screwed in tight! And also, no making out until the piercing is healed. I know it's hard... but you don't want to wake up the next morning thinking you've lost your piercing when it's really just burrowed so far into your lip that you can't feel it with your tongue. Ouch.