So, on the 27th of February 2024, I got my cheek piercings. Well… sort of? Gemma coined the term ‘Deek Piercings’ because they are a midway placement between Cheeks and Dahlias. The reasoning for this was my anatomy! And with cheeks regaining popularity, and them being a fan favourite, I thought I’d tell you all how my piercing experience went!
Now, I have to preface this by saying I am only two weeks into my healing, and cheeks can take up to 2 years before they finally Settle down and get comfortable. You can read a deep dive and overview of cheek piercings here! But, I definitely think those first two weeks are A) the most important and B) the absolute worst.
On my own personal scale of 1-10, the actual pain of having them pierced was quite low, maybe around a 4? I can definitely remember my tragus piercing hurting way more in the moment. They were pierced by Gemma as part of her training, under direct supervision of Aiden. The beautiful thing about it was that Gemma had done her first set only 2 hours prior! Aiden held my hand and was super supportive of us both, as you can imagine we were both nervous but for very different reasons!
The after feeling of the piercing was amazing, I had an immediate rush of excitement and happiness, especially when I got to look at them in the mirror. They just looked great and I couldn’t have been happier, I couldn’t stop laughing for a solid 5 minutes. And then came the difficult bit – eating. We were having a film night at Rogue that evening, and we collectively ordered Wagamama’s together. I realised the 24mm bars in my mouth, and the tight constrictive feeling that was happening, meant that eating was going to be difficult. I played it safe and had some soft bread and katsu curry!
The next day I went ahead and got myself a bunch of meal replacement shakes. To be quite honest, I think the first week was possibly the most nutrients and vitamins my body has ever had! I’d also bought a ton of water, and easy to eat soft foods, such as instant mash and plenty of tinned foods. I just needed something easy to swallow. I also ate a lot of rice!
We headed off to the Edinburgh expo on the Saturday, and on Monday and Tuesday I was starting to fill my face again! I started off with pizza (and I cannot tell you how good it was to eat solid food, plus they had the best garlic sauce I’d ever tasted). By Tuesday night, the swelling had started to decrease and the bars were starting to poke out of my face and move as I ate! I had to take a bite of food, and then hold the bars while I chewed. Definitely looked a bit funny!
I returned back to work on Friday, so only three days later, and it felt absolutely horrible to talk, and I couldn’t even smile at people! I had to keep apologising to people and say “Hey, I promise i’m smiling, my face just hurts a lot right now!” Thankfully, most people were incredibly understanding! We also did the first downsize! 24mm initially pierced, dropped down to 18mm! The relief was amazing! We also upsized the balls on the inside of my mouth to 5mm. This was because the balls had started digging into the swelling on the inside of my cheek and was creating a lot of uncomfortable pressure and soreness!
By the the following week I was mostly back to normal, drinking and eating as I had been before, although I definitely chomped down on the larger balls a few times. There is still a mild bit of swelling happening (although I definitely didn’t look as puffy as I did the first week) and a lot of of localised redness. They’re also incredibly crusty, and every time I eat it pushes out more lymph node ( I keep just telling people my face is leaking), but It’s definitely a good sign that everything is healing and doing what it needs to. And just before the 3 week mark, we downsized the 5mm balls back down to 4mm, and my mouth has never felt so spacious!
I am still healing and making gradual downsizes, week by week, but the hard part is definitely over! There’s still quite a bit of localised swelling/pinching around the bars, as well as redness and many crusties each day, but for me it’s definitely worth it.
I decided to write this blog as when I was looking into other people’s experiences with cheek piercings, there wasn’t much out there. I’m very much a person who likes to know exactly what to expect. And so hopefully it might be helpful to someone else! Now of course, please keep in mind that everyone heals differently, and so your experience could be totally different! If you also want to see a day-by-day highlight of the healing process, check out my Instagram highlights for a close up view!
If you are interested in booking your own cheek piercings, book a consultation with Aiden or Gemma here!