"When we pierce somebody's lips, we pierce them with a super long bar, because they're going to swell up, [and] we want the bar to be able to accommodate the swelling," Gottschalk says. He warns that if the jewellery 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 says can take anywhere from two to four weeks, this jewellery 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 says. 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 jewellery put in for aesthetic and dental purposes.