I have wanted a lip piercing for a long time but my job prohibits me from having facial piercings. They are very tolerant of my 3/4" lobes and 6ga septum piercing (which I take out every day while I'm at the office anyway) but I really am not able to push the rules any further than that. I often have the urge to pierce my self and usually relieve that need by play piercing with hypodermic needles. I generally just stick the needle through random parts of my body but I've also been known to perform piercings that I want, keep them in for a few hours, and then remove them. It always sucks having to take them out but it's still fun to have them in for a little while.
At A Glance Author Whtiney Contact Whtiney@bme.anon IAM Fuzzybeast When N/A I recently had an entire weekend off work that I was using to road trip down to Toronto and Barrie to visit with friends and watch some suspensions. My plan was to pierce my lip on Thursday after work (I had Friday off) and remove it on Sunday night or Monday morning before I went to the office. Between packing and running errands I managed to completely forget about this plan (in true Whitney fashion). I remembered at about one o'clock on Saturday morning after several mixed drinks. Sarah pulled out her needles and my ingenious plan all came back to me!
I figured there was no time like the present to carry it out. After all, I still had two more days to wear the piercing before I went back to work on Monday so I rooted through her supplies and took an 18.5ga hypodermic needle and then rummaged through my own bag of piercing equipment until I found a 16ga curved barbell. In my drunken state the size difference didn't worry me. I figured if I pushed hard enough I could get the jewelry in.
Without really alerting my friends about what I was planning to do I took a needle, and my barbell, and locked myself in the bathroom. With no regard for cleanliness I unscrewed one of the cone shaped beads from the end of the barbell and set both pieces directly on the counter. I unwrapped the needle and slid it out of it the sheath. The needle was quite a bit smaller than a standard fourteen gauge piercing needle (about 1mm instead of 1.6mm) but it was still much larger than the hypodermic needles that I typically pierce myself with.
In any case, I had enough alcohol in my system to relieve any concerns I may otherwise have had. I held the needle with my right hand and lined it up with the centre of my lip. I pressed the index and middle fingers on my left on the top of my lip on either side of where the needle was supposed to come through. I slowly began to push the needle through my lip.
I have never been able to pierce myself quickly and tonight was no exception to that rule. I pushed, and slowly but surely the odd stinging sensation crept through my lip as the needle passed through. It reached the top of my lip and I watched in anticipation as the skin tented under the needle. Just as the needle broke the skin I felt a sharp pain and in that moment it was like all of my common sense came flooding back to me in a wave of dizziness and mild nausea.
I was standing in someone's bath room, wasted, shoving an 18ga hypodermic needle through my lip and getting ready to put dirty 16ga jewelry in the fresh piercing. Not just that, but the jewelry I had selected had extremely sharp cone shaped balls which certainly would not have been comfortable in a vertical lip piercing. I could hardly believe my stupidity.
I removed the needle and stuck it back into the sheath, being careful not to touch anything or jab myself. My lip was already swelling slightly and there were two small bubbles of blood which I kept licking away until they stopped reappearing. I'm not much of a bleeder so it didn't take too long to coagulate.
I screwed the bead back onto my barbell and brought it, along with the used needle, back to Sarah's room to put my jewelry away to use another day when I was sober, and had proper piercing equipment and sterile jewelry. I asked where her Sharps container was and then had to explain the story to my friends who laughed a little but mostly felt bad that I was too drunk for a successful do-it-yourself weekend lip piercing.
The next day I had a teeny tiny mark under my lip but there was no swelling or pain. It's now Monday night and you can't even see where I pierced. I'm bummed out that I didn't even get this piercing for the weekend but I know I'll have another weekend off soon enough. Next I attempt this I will make sure I use my sterilized tools and a proper needle though.