I got my bottom lip pierced horizontally approx. six months ago the jewellery was a ptfe surface bar, this is not a particularly painful piercing but the swelling afterwards was a nightmare! For the first couple of days my lip was swollen and any movements like chewing made me wince, which seemed to be of great amusement to my friends as they watched me attempting to eat a meal cut into tiny baby sized bites! For anybody considering getting it done please remember that until it is fully healed eating a spicy curry will result in a very stingy lip! Aftercare was the usual just clean three times daily with a saline solution which I found really dried my lip out leaving my skin chapped. Apart from the initial discomfort I had little problem with it there was no great discharge although it did usually look a bit icky after a good nights rest.
At A Glance Author pingu Contact pinguwasoncrack@hotmail.co.uk When A week ago Artist Darryl Studio Retro Rebels Location aberdeen I've never seen anyone in my area with their lip done horizontally I did get questioned about it a few times and I was really happy to have a piercing that was just that little bit different and I really liked the way it looked on my face.
After the initial swelling went down I noticed that it did not look straight so I got it checked out by the piercer, Darryl at Retro Rebels, who is quite possibly the sweetest guy I've ever met, he told me it was just a little swollen still and should eventually settle. Eventually it settled and looked really good and apart from getting elbowed in the face in a mosh pit it gave me little trouble until a couple of weeks ago. I first noticed that my lip was swollen where the bar was but I felt no pain or tenderness, a couple of days after this the swelling was still there and the bar was feeling loose the balls no longer sat flush on my lip and I could see the bar sticking out my lip. Worried that it was rejecting I returned to the piercer who cut the threads down on the bar so the balls sat flush again. This immediately helped, where before I found it uncomfortable to kiss my girlfriend, it would catch against her lip, I could now share the love freely. This only lasted a couple of days before it started getting really uncomfortable again, upon close inspection of my lip I noticed it appeared to be migrating to the right and that scar tissue was forming in my lip near the centre and the lip seemed to be thinning to the left of the piercing leaving me with a wonky looking lip when I smiled. Not wanting to risk any further swelling and scarring I decided to remove the bar myself. I cut the thread off one side of the bar to make removal easier and slowly pulled it out my lip which was a really strange feeling. Once out I inspected my lip and the tissue in the centre of my lip was swollen and there was a definite thinning of the lip to the left when I smiled.
It is now a week after I removed the piercing and my bottom lip is still swollen, it looks like scar tissue has built up in my lip where the bar was, and it shows little sign of going down. Fortunately it is not particularly noticeable to others and if anything my lip now looks a little plumper which is actually not a bad thing as I've always had thin lips. While I miss this piercing I don't think I'll risk getting it done again and part of me is actually quite enjoying not having any visible facial piercings (my only other facial piercing is a 4mm septum).
There is no real moral to this story and few lessons to be learned. As far as I am aware the piercer did a good job, I know I looked after it properly and apart from getting smacked in the lip by the guy in the mosh pit who was all elbows (and who ran for the bouncers like a little girl when I squared up to him for elbowing a female friend in the face when she wasn't even moshing) there was no trauma. I guess what I learnt is that you have to know when something isn't working out for you and have the sense to get it checked out and remove it before it causes any major damage.
Some piercings are just not meant to be and although I miss it, it was just a piercing and while I like having them they don't change me it's just a bit of metal, plastic, whatever rammed through my flesh. I'm as happy without it as I was with it and for anyone who loses a piercing for whatever reason you are just as beautiful without it as you were with it.