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Woman tells of botched piercing that left her mouth bleeding for weeks

Doctors refused to remove Caitiee's piercing bar over fears it would go septic. 

Natasha Salmon
Sunday 08 October 2017 17:20 BST
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Caitiee's face swelled 'like a balloon' after the botch procedure
Caitiee's face swelled 'like a balloon' after the botch procedure (Trinity Mirror)

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A woman says she bled for four days and her face swelled “like a balloon” after a botched piercing procedure.

The woman, who asked only to be idenitified as Caitiee, had “dimple” piercings in each cheek but was left bleeding from her mouth after a bad reaction to one of the bars.

The 17-year-old from Dublin said doctors were afraid to remove the piercing in her right cheek for fear it would go septic.

The botched procedure was conducted in September and the mother-of-one said she knew something “wasn’t right” when she almost passed out from the pain.

She told Dublin Live: "I can't even describe the pain of that one, I thought I was going to pass out, she kind of looked at it for a few minutes and it swelled straight away.

"She said 'that swelled a bit much and it's going over the bar', so she went and got the owner of the shop and he said 'it'll be grand, it's grand, just do the other side'.

"When he was standing over I noticed that he told her to do the other side differently.”

(Dublin Live
(Dublin Live (Dublin Live)

Caitiee said her face was “like a balloon” before she even left the shop and by the next day the entire side of her face had then swollen.

As the piercing continued to bleed she visited the hospital where a doctor told her the piercing had not been done properly and said they may have burst a blood vessel.

They refused to remove the piercing in case it caused an infection.

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