hi! I am a ninth grader in Minnesota, and this is the story of my labret and medusa piercings, which were done one right after the other. Ok, so, I am just one of those people who really likes piercings, and tattoos, and stuff, and thinks they are really awesome, but the problem is that I have parents who don't approve of those kind of things. They did give in after a few years of annoying them to let me get my ear lobes pierced, but that was the last that they would give in to. So all the modifications I do have to be self done. A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to get my lip pierced. Just a plain labret in the middle of my lower lip. I had seen pictures of people with both a labret, and a medusa piercing, and I thought that those looked really awesome together, so I decided that eventually, when I turned 18 I would get a medusa too. But I decided that until then, I would just bug my mom about a plain labret. So thats what I did. I set about annoying the hell out of her, and arguing all the time about getting the piercing. I did a ton of research, and made the best arguments possible, but she wouldn't budge. On winter break, we took a trip to Taiwan, and Thailand. I started getting very frustrated there, because there were so many people there with tons of tattoos, and piercings, and my mom still wouldn't let me get just a plain simple labret.
At A Glance Author mason grove Contact masongrove@comcast.net When Three months ago Artist myself Studio in my bathroom Location st. louis park minnesota u.s. Self piercing is dangerous, because to do piercings the best way possible, you need to go to a parlor. I don't recommend doing them yourself. If I could have gotten them done at a piercing parlor, I would have, but you need to have a parents permission to do that, and I didn't have that. So when I got back from Thailand, I bought a 14 gage piercing needle, and some forceps from a friend I have who is over 18, and has done lots of piercings. He even had a labret himself, that he had self done. That weekend, I went to the Mall Of America with my girlfriend, and bought two lip rings, and one labret stud. That night, my parents went out to dinner, so I decided that it was the right time to do the piercing. Pretty soon before I did them, I decided that I would just do a medusa too, while I was at it. So, when they left I ate a really big meal of macaroni and cheese, so I wouldn't feint or anything. Then I started setting up the bathroom for the piercing. I brought in my CD player, to play some music. I put a big piece of cardboard over the sink , so that I would have a sort of counter to put stuff on right underneath the mirror. I set out everything on a disinfectant wipe on top of the cardboard on the sink. I had my forceps, a small rubber band to hold the forceps closed, the piercing needle, the jewelry with the balls screwed off the end so they were ready, a pen for marking,and some disinfectant for washing my hands and lip. I "sterilized" the forceps by heating them until they were glowing red, in the gas flame of my stove. The needle was already sterilized in its little package. I was getting really exited, and nervous at that time, and I couldn't keep from always tapping my foot really fast, and stuff like that. I kept thinking about how awesome it would be to have my lips pierced! And what peoples reactions would be at school the next day. I turned on the radio, just for some background noise, to keep me from getting too nervous in the complete silence. "Oh my god, this is going to hurt a lot!" That was all I could think, but then I got myself under control, and made myself think only about what I was doing, and doing it right. I first washed my hands, and then washed the outside of my lip. I stood in front of the mirror, and marked my lower lip, with a small black dot, right in the horizontal center. Then I clamped the forceps on, and adjusted them until it seemed like the piercing would go straight. Next I grabbed the needle, and slowly started poking the tip into my lip.
Heres a tip for doing self piercings, that will help some people with the pain. If you aren't thinking about the pain, you wont notice it as much, so what I do, is I just focus all my attention on what my hands are doing, and making sure that I am doing everything perfectly right. Then I don't really pay attention to the pain, so I can get through it a lot easier. It would have hurt like hell if I didn't do that, because for a second while I was doing the piercing, I stopped thinking about it, and it hurt really horribly, but then I started thinking again about what I was doing, and I stopped thinking about the pain. The first prick wasn't so bad. The hard part is pushing the whole hollow angled part of the tip of the needle in, because it sort of like cuts in. But eventually I got it in. It was really slow. I would push it further in, then wait a little bit, holding the needle there, then push it in some more, and keep doing that. When I got about half way through my lip, blood started to flow out of the back end of the hollow needle. And it was dripping kind of fast. Luckily, I had set out some paper towels underneath, to catch the blood, but still, when it dripped some of it would spatter up onto the wall. I kept pushing. I saw the tip of the needle poking through on the inside of my lip, and I slowly pushed it all the way through. Then I tried to push one of the rings through as I slid the needle back out, but it didn't really work, so I started trying to get the jewelry in, but it was really hard! I could get it in the back of the hole, but then I couldn't find the front of the hole with it, so I just kept poking it around in my lip flesh. Eventually I just took the labret stud, and put it in from the outside to the inside, and screwed the ball on in the inside. It looked kind of bad, but I decided I would change it in a few days when the swelling went down. Another thing that made it hard to get the jewelry in was that there was a lot of blood everywhere, and it made things kind of slippery. Then I did the medusa, which went a lot like the labret, but since it was in the center of my top lip, it hurt a lot more. It was really hard not to think about the pain. Right when I got the needle through, I called my girlfriend, and I said "Hi! I have needles sticking through my lips! I have to put the jewelry in, I love you! bye", it was kind of funny, she was like "what?" The medusa was hard to get the jewelry into also. But eventually I did.
Then, I quickly washed off the forceps, and stuff, and put them in my room. I didn't want my parents to find out until the next day. I was just going to email them, and tell them what I did. The paper towels, and cardboard were soaked through with blood, and it looked like I murdered somebody in my bathroom. So I quickly brought the cardboard and paper towels, and other disposable stuff out to the dumpster, then scrubbed all the blood off the wall, and rinsed the piercings with water, then went to bed. When they came home, they said I had to come out there, because they wanted to talk to me." I am busted", I thought. When I got out there, they looked at the piercings, and they got really mad, and started yelling a bunch, I just sat there, and didn't care, because they couldn't do anything to get me to take them out, and I was really happy that I finally had my piercings! I ended up being grounded for a month, but I got through it okay, I mean, it was just a month of being grounded, and I had wanted the piercings for a lot longer than that. So it was worth it. I soaked them in sea salt water for a couple minutes twice a day, and in a couple days, I switched the labret stud to a ring, which was much better. And when it was healing, I kissed my girlfriend a lot, and made out with her, and everything, and it really didn't cause any problems with the piercing. Now I have plain labret studs in both of them, with plastic posts, so they don't chip my teeth or anything, and my dentist, and orthodontist say they are okay, and they don't cause any problems with my braces or anything either. I love these piercings! I recommend them to anyone who wants them. I will get a picture of them on this site eventually. I really like that the medusa is a kind of uncommon piercing, at least where I live, and nobody else has a piercing like mine that I have seen in Minnesota. So its very unique.
Oh yea, and my parents said they found out that I did it, because there was blood clogged up in the sink, so it didn't go down the drain. Okay, so thats the story of my self piercings.