Friday 10•10•08
At A Glance Author Chris Contact noizefreak@gmail.com IAM mutedequilibrium When N/A Artist Steve DeToma Studio Anomaly Piercing Studio Location Pasadena, CA
So I head out to Anomaly with Patty. I'm on the fence on about getting 2/3 of the following done for the evening: labret scalpelling, septum punch, or each corner of my bottom lip pierced. I'm thinking I'll get some lip rings, and one of the other major ones. We arrive, and Steve and Sque3z are working. I'd been messaging Steve back and forth about everything for the last week and knew he'd be in. Steve finishes up piercing someone's mom's nostril, we discuss what's going to go down, and decide to do the septum AND labret [this story will be about the labret only]. I'm well aware of the soreness I'll be feeling over the next week, and decide to go for it. For half a second, I'm contemplating doing all 4, but decide to do the rings later on so that I'm actually capable of eating over the next week. 1st up: 0g labret. He gets everything ready, does some marking, checking, I check, remarking, and we're good to go. I swish that tasty blue stuff in my mouth. He has me lie down, and tells me what the plan is. He soaks up whatever spit I've got behind my lip and swabs me down. He tells me he's going to clamp me with the forceps, pull my lip down, go in with the scalpel, come out, wrap gauze around the lip, take forceps off, pinch the lip, come in with the taper, and then through with the plug. Simple enough! I breathe a few times, and we're ready for the countdown. The scalpel goes in and out, quick and smooth. It stings more than a lip piercing does, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'm calm within a minute or so as Steve cleans me off, I swish again, and I get ready for the septum punch [to be continued in another story!].
I get home a couple of hours later, and notice I can't feel the labret plug from the inside. I look in the mirror, peel down my lip, and dread overwhelms me as I notice the plug is being swallowed by my lip. I swish with some hot-warm water, get a q-tip, pull my lip out, and push the plug 'up' from underneath and peel the skin away from the back of the plug with the q-tip. The skin looks like plastic wrap as I'm peeling it back off the plug. What a bitch. I cautiously eat some veggie chicken nuggets and pass out.
Day 1: Saturday
By the time I wake up, I realize my lip won't swallow the plug completely, so I just let it chill out, half swallowed. It stays like this all day. I take a cap off of some cologne that's quite long and 7/8" in diameter, wash it out, and fill it with hot-warm sea salt water to soak my labret in. It fits perfectly around the plug and covers it completely. For a cold compress, I fold a paper towel twice and tear it in half. I wet one half, freeze it, and tear off little squares to pinch over my lip. This feels pretty much amazing. I also suck on some ice cubes throughout the day. Eating hurts a bit, as it's pretty sore. I take little bites.
Day 2: Sunday
Sunday is basically the same, still pretty sore but slightly better. I realize I can get a suction effect with the cologne cap on my labret and it brings out whatever bloody goo is just under the surface. I use q-tips with anti-bacterial soap once in the morning and once at night, and sea salt water every time I put something in my mouth that's not water.
Day 3: Monday
I wake up, and my plug is swallowed as per usual. I pop it out and, to my surprise, it stays 'unswallowed' the entire day. After doing a good hour of research, I can't find out whether Biotene tests on animals or not. So I go with the generic CVS brand. This stuff is really thick and gel-like, not what I would expect from a mouthwash, but my mouth feels much better afterwards.
Day 4: Tuesday
By now my labret goes through phases of swollen and less swollen. My plug sits complete outside of my inner lip when it's less swollen, and half swallowed when it's more swollen [I notice it's like this every time I eat]. I'm getting slight crusties behind the o-ring, but very little white discharge. The redness that was around the hole, on inside, is all but gone. I can open my mouth completely now without it hurting at all. The soreness has gone down significantly, and smiling isn't painful at all anymore. It's still awkward having a 0g glass plug in my lip, but I'm mostly accrediting that to what little swelling is left. I'm guess it will be gone completely by the end of the week.
All in all, I'm incredibly happy with it. Steve did a great job communicating and letting me know exactly what was going to happen. I've heard stretching your lip is much like stretching your ears out, as there's a lot of tissue and blood vessels. Steve confirmed this. I'm already looking at bigger jewelry...