"When we pierce somebody's lips, we pierce them with a superlong bar, because they're going to swell up, [and] we want the bar to be able to accommodate the swelling," Gottschalk said. He warned that if the jewelry isn't long enough, then when the initial swelling occurs, the bar will have no place to go but inside your body, which is definitely not the desired outcome. Once the initial swelling goes down, which Beall said can take anywhere from two to four weeks, this jewelry can then be replaced with a shorter bar, which is called downsizing.
"Not everyone is always prepared for the fact that they kind of have an antennae sticking out of their lip for the first 24 hours, and then it swells up after that," Beall said. It may take a few weeks, but as soon as the swelling has gone down, you can visit your piercer to get the appropriately sized jewelry put in for aesthetic and dental purposes.
