After attempting to research large gauge/stretched inner labia piercings and not finding too much in the way of experiences and none on starting out with larger jewelry, I'll try to be super thorough (at the risk of being boring), working with the assumption that there are other ladies who want napkin ring labia!
At A Glance Author axiom Contact axiom@bme.anon IAM axiom When A month ago Artist Michael Mulcahy Studio Prix Body Adornment Location West Hollywood / Los Angeles CA I wanted to start off with the largest jewelry possible, and was initially hoping that Michael Mulcahy, my quite capable boss/piercer/friend, would be willing to scalpel them to my little heart's content. (Goes without saying that I have a huge amount of respect for Michael. I know that he always has his client's best interests in mind, which means that he's obsessed with quality jewelry, cleanliness, and making sure that everyone leaves his chair with a well-executed piercing). So, after a checkup, he let me down gently. I, like many women, am quite asymetrical in the labia, and I also have pretty heavy outer labia, which he thought would come over the inner labia and put pressure on larger piercings. Based on my anatomy, it was decided that the largest he was comfortable with for the initial piercing was an 8ga on my smaller side and a 4ga on the larger. For monetary (I can piggyback my jewelry for stretching) and aesthetic (this way they'll look more even, even though they're not), I opted for a 6ga on one side and a 4ga on the other.
For initial jewelry, Michael ordered a couple of 5/16" titanium barbells with large flat disks on either end. They're light, short enough to minimize snaggage and keep them from weighing more heavily on one side of the piercing, and gave me the look of plugs that I wanted, since I compromised on size issues. Excellent choice. They look beautiful, and although I don't know how healing would have been with rings of any variety, I imagine that it would have been much more eventful, and in a bad way (I can't imagine how much more they'd get snagged or knocked around).
A few days after the jewelry arrived, we closed up the shop and got down to business.
Michael set up the piercing room and put tools and jewelry into the statim, waiting for the cycle to finish, he offered me a little lidocaine jelly, which I accepted. Can't be too proud. He had me recline in the chair with my feet sole-to-sole on the foot rest. Generally, I'd say this was better than any kind of stirrup action, but still a little awkward. He cleaned off the area with Technicare = a little tingling warmth. Then he applied the Lidocaine Jelly = intense, searing burn. Michael prefaced it with: "this might feel kind of warm." HA!
Waiting for the numbing to take effect (and consequently the burning to stop), Michael went to town with the gentian violet marking where he thought the piercings would sit best for healing and also leave me with a good amount of room for stretching. While marking, he noticed that my smaller labium had a fold in the middle (imagine it being kind of wavy), right were he would have placed the piercing. No good. With the caveat that it would be harder to heal and may not work at all or be comfortable, he placed marks closer to the base, almost in the transition from outer labium to inner labium. Despite the negative of healing, if it did work out, it would give me more room for stretching and help even out the space difference between the two labia. (He voiced concern that I might not have enough tissue on the small side to stretch very large, which is yet to be seen).
Piercing #1: Larger (easy) labia, placed near the middle of the labium tissue: 6ga needle, pierced from outside to inside. followed by an insertion taper (the barbells were slightly rounded on the ends), followed by the jewelry = really not so bad. Just pinchy, I swear.
Piercing #2: Smaller (more difficult) labia, placed very close to the base of the labium tissue: 8ga needle, pierced from inside to outside, followed by insertion taper, followed by the jewelry = OW OW! I slid up that chair so fast it was like teleportation. Or maybe not, but it felt that way.
Cleaned up a some blood, went home. I didn't think to bring either underwear or a pad, which was dumb. Take those with you when you go.
On the drive home, my crotch was on fire. ON FIRE. I had to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few supplies, and standing in the aisles I thought my genitalia might ignite.
I burst into the apartment (with baby steps) and sped to the bathroom (past a bewildered boyfriend), ripped off the pants, and jumped into the tub, feverishly splashing cold water at my crotch (which, I think through the violence of the splashing) caused a torrent of blood, and only minor relief from the intense fire. I dried off and called Michael, leaving some voicemail to the effect of "Hi, um, my crotch is on fire, and I really don't know what to do about it. Please help." He called me back a little later with the advice of more cold water splashing and that I must have had a bad reaction, and unfortunately, there really wasn't much to be done (since really the only negative was t hat it was uncomfortable, nothing bad was going to happen) but that it would likely go away soon ." More water dousing and I went to bed, and I woke up to burn-free labia. For my future genital piercings, I'd just go for it without the numbing agent, but there are plenty of women who use the jelly and have only wonderful results.
Since then, the healing has been pretty uneventful, they're just about 3 1/2 weeks old and the troublesome labium is still on the path to healing, but I think it'll pull through alright, just with a little extra time. The larger labium is doing great as far as I can tell, and has been a breeze so far. In the beginning, I would get them pinched a little crossing my legs or wearing jeans that were tight in the crotch, but it wasn't enough to cause a scene and being ginger with them didn't last very long. For the first few days (four or so?) there was a really small amount of blood, just a few dots after an jostling. So far I've been soaking each one individually once or twice a day. For the first weekish, after I went to the bathroom, I rinsed off the piercings with the standard mix salt water solution in a squirt bottle to wash away any urine or blood that was on there. Michael didn't advise me to do this, but I felt like between morning and evening soakings I didn't want anything foreign to the piercing accumulating there. I'm not sure if this really did any good or not, but it did make me feel better about how they were doing during the day. Positive thinking is an excellent step in healing!
As soon as they're healed I'll start stretching, which by all accounts, should be super easy and fast, yay!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask!