This is a small excerpt about embedded jewelry by Elayne Angel in Pain Magazine.  Because of the popularity of upper and lower lip piercings, all piercers and piercees have to deal on occasion with embedded jewelry.  The vast majority of problems comes when the piercer does not use adequate length of jewelry.  Swelling occurs and creates an embedding problem that must be corrected.

These are her comments:

When you fail to change out jewelry that is too short, it can become embedded.  It is much easier to prevent this from happening than to treat it after it does.  If your jewelry is starting to sink into your tissue, see your piercer for a longer pierce right away.  Tongue and lip jewelry normally nest  (sink a millimeter or two) into the soft oral tissues, but if more than half of the ball has disappeared into your piercing or the skin appears to be growing over your jewelry, visit you piercer as soon as possible.  Oral tissue regenerates extremely quickly, and jewlry can end up embedded over night.  If you cannot immediately get to your piercer for help, use elevation, rest, ice, and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication to minimize the symptoms until yo0u are able to get your jewelry changed.

In the unfortunate event that the tissue completely grows over the jewelry and you or your piercer cannot push it back through the surface, you must seek medical care.  A small incision will be made (generally under local anesthesia) to allow for removal of your unintentional implant.  If you want to preserve the hole, obtain jewelry of the proper size beforehand, as it might be possible to insert it after the embedded pierce has been liberated.

As a piercer always allow for swelling with lip and tongue piercings.  I give my clients the option to come back after the lip or tongue returns to normal and  I replace the post at a highly reduced price.  I give them the original piercing post and tell them to keep in a safe place for reuse in the event they experience unexpected swelling in the future.  Excessive swelling can happen for not apparent reason at any time, so it is smart to be prepared with a post that will accommodate that swelling

Want to get into trouble, recommend something, anything, in the piercing business.  Do not recommend anything.  When piercing, take that word out of your vocabulary forever.

You SUGGEST!  When talking about jewelry or anything about body piercing you suggest.  You suggest jewelry size, Your suggest aftercare procedures.  You suggest problem assessment solutions.  You suggest products for aftercare.

You can get into trouble by recommending aftercare products.  This can be a liability issue.  If you suggest it is unlikely you could be held liable.  If you recommend – you are inviting legal liability.

If you offer aftercare products for sale, always suggest their use and have that in your literature.  My suggestion is not to Give-Away any aftercare products as an inducement to the piercing.  That would suggest that are recommending the aftercare products.

In body piercing there are no generally accepted “published”  rules for aftercare or piercing.  Therefore, you have no defense by saying you do things the generally accepted method, so use caution when discussing aftercare and piercing with your clients.  Body Piercing Training Videos can be a big help in your body piercing development.