Well i thought it was time to write about the old tongue web piercing like i have been meaning to do for ages. It was never a piercing that particularly did anything for me, i neither liked or disliked it, so i don't know what prompted me to get it done.
At A Glance Author Louise Contact louise_wood42@hotmail.com IAM louise_wood42 When A month ago Artist Caroline Studio Manchester Body Piercing Location Manchester, Northwest UK
One day i set off to Manchester to do some xmas shopping, knowing i wanted to get something done, but not sure what exactly, i just knew i had the 'urge'. So anyway i get there, walked into the studio and just knew what i wanted to get. My tongue-web. It wasn't on the piercing list but i knew they would probably do it. So i asked Caroline if i could get it done and she took a long look at my web and got the other piercer Louise to have a look. They ummm'd and ahhh'd for a bit and finally decided they would make it a joint effort, Louise would pierce and Caroline would assist and get the jewelry in (smaller fingers). Great!! We were ready to rock n roll!! Caroline said she would do it for cheaper and also gave a discount card for future visits which was pretty cool!! I filled in the usual apers and they took me through to the room.
At this point i wasn't feeling very nervous at all i have to say, i don't know why but Caroline's pierced me a few times and i feel very at ease with her. I wasn't scared of it hurting and i didn't really care if it did, i have no idea what brought this fearlessness on, but lately i have become very accpeting of pain, if it hurts it hurts, if i want it bad enough i'll just have to put up with it. Weird huh?? So everything was prepped and ready to go, i had Caroline and Louise staring into my gob so i didn't really know where to look.
Louise went in for the kill and began to clamp my web. This took quite a few attempts as she wanted to get it just right and the clamps kept slipping. Eventually she got the placement as she wanted it and got the needle ready to go through. It was quite a strange sensation, i felt the needle go through each layer of skin, it was pretty amazing. Louise had a little trouble getting the needle out as it was curved and she didn't want to rip the tube, so Caroline gently pulled the needle out. So i was left with a plastic tube through my web, waiting for jewelry, Louise took the clamps off carefully and said she would have a go at inserting the jewelry. The barbell (SSS 1.6mm/14g, probably 12mm id) went in nicely and Louise handed over to Caroline to screw the ball on.
Caroline then got a pair of curved, tweezer-like clamps to hold the barbell steady. Then voila, the ball was on and all was done. I felt fine, i felt great!!! I had a look in the mirror and it looked fine, i thanked Caroline and Louise and left them to clear up and went on my way.
About halfway down the street i got my piercing buzz, i felt really wierd, a bit drunk. It was really funny, i needed to get some cash and went to the nearest cashpoint to draw out £10, i really thought i pressed '10' but in my little haze i pressed '70' and i was really baffled when £70 came chugging out of the machine. Oh well, i couldn't be bothered shopping after that, i was too excited, so i decided to go home and show my sister what i had done.
Ok now fastforward 4 days. I go back to the studio to hopefully get my bar changed down because it had really started to piss me off and it was too tempting to play with it. Caroline told me that it was still a little swollen and she would prefer not to change it until it was at least a week old, but she sympathised with me at least.
Fastforward again, the web is 1 week and 4 days old and i'm going back again praying Caroline will change this damn thing down. She did and it feels much better, i can tell it's there but it doesn't flap half as much as the longer one. She also said the swelling may go down further and i could change it down again to a smaller size.
Cleaning; For the first week of the piercing i swilled four times a day (minimum) with saline solution and after i ate anything. After that i used the saline intermittently and drank a lot of water. Now the piercing is 3 weeks old and fine, no signs of migration, i still swill plenty of water and clean the balls with my electric toothbrush to prevent plaque buildup.
Summary; All in all a pretty straightforward experience, i do enjoy this piercing, it doesn't really do anything and no-one knows about it or can see it, but i know it's there and it makes me feel happy. The actual piercing didn't hurt, but a couple of days afterwards i was slow eating and it hurt a little, i couldn't stretch my tongue about and it did get quite stiff and achy from holding it in a different position all the time. It did take a little getting used to but 3 weeks on it's fine, full movement and no pain. It feels like i've had it forever, i'm now considering stretching it up a little, just to make it a little more stable (i'm paranoid about piercings rejecting). I also want my tongue piercing soon, but i'll have to see how likely that will be with the web bar there and me having quite a large web anyway, so we'll see.Any questions - feel free to e-mail me or visit my iam page and IM me.