In my last tongue piercing experience, I wrote about my 2 off center tongue piercings. I concluded my story by talking about a slight gum recession problem that went away. The barbell on the right side of my tongue was about 2mm forward compared to my left side. This might sound small but it was enough to cause problems. Whenever I moved my tongue, the ball underneath my tongue would rub directly where my gums met my tooth on the inside of my mouth... I hope you're still with me, its kind of hard to explain.
At A Glance Author Lindsay Contact lindsay139@hotmail.com When A week ago Artist Tony Studio Ancient Expressions Location Peterborough Ontario Anyway! After awhile everything settled down and I thought the problem was solved. But, that would be too easy. Once I started experiencing the problem again, I got new barbells that were 3/8th inch. They were tiny compared to the ones that I used to have. This stopped the gum recession, and once again I thought everything was fine. So, after having these in for a long time, I noticed the problem yet again! This time I switched from the large acrylic balls down to a 3 or 4mm ball. This was a great improvement. For about 6 months I had no problems at all, and I was very happy with my venoms.
But then, completely out of the blue, my gums hurt again! I was getting so frustrated, and I really hated the thought of loosing my venoms because of my gums. I suffered for about a day, but then I saw that my gums were receding a lot and it would be stupid to keep it in. So I took it out. I was so upset! I didn't know I was going to be so attached to a piercing. And now my tongue was lopsided. I ended up keeping the hole open, visiting my piercer and asking for his advice. I bought the tiniest bead I have ever seen, and used that for about an hour but it was still so painful. I just had to take it out. It hurt so much. Luckily, it didn't do all that much damage.
I left it out overnight and the next day I went to the mall. I found flat back labret barbells, 3/8th inch. They looked perfect! I really thought they would solve my problems. So I bought two of them and put them in (strangely enough, my hole didn't close overnight!) I left those in for about a day, but I had to take them out too, because the bottoms seemed to be cutting into my tongue. It was even more uncomfortable than the gum recession. So I figured everything was hopeless and I just gave up.
A couple days later, I decided I would get it pierced again, angled back so it wouldn't bother me. I went on my lunch break from school. When I got to the shop, Tony said it would be about 20 more minutes. I had my boyfriend drop off my old barbell the day before to get autoclaved. While I was waiting, I went to the mall to grab a bite to eat. Once I got back to the shop I was really surprised cause I wasn't nervous at all. Tony called me back and he had a look at my tongue for awhile and then marked it. He went to ask one of the other piercers to help him and I yelled for my boyfriend to come back and hold my hand. Yeah, so I was feeling nervous by that point. Tony showed me everything was sterile, blah blah blah. He didn't give me an aftercare sheet probably because I've already healed two tongue piercings by him. My tongue is very short and Tony really had to pull so he would be able to position my new piercing correctly. Honestly, the clamps were hell, and the piercing i tself was pretty bad too. It was a terrible pain! After I drooled all over myself, I got up and looked in the mirror. Tony mentioned how he had just saved me a lot of blood. Turns out he had to try really hard to avoid a big vein, which I'm glad he didn't tell me in the first place. That's why he called in the other piercer, incase I started spewing blood all over. The new piercing was perfectly lined up with my other one, but I could tell the bottom was much further back. I wasn't able to look at the underside of my tongue because I was in so much pain. Tony charged me a mere $25 for this baby.
I left the shop feeling very good. I could talk fine for about 15 minutes, and then my tongue really got huge and I sounded like an idiot. But hey, its all part of the fun.
I got back to school and made my English teacher look faint when I showed her what I just got done. She doesn't like that kind of stuff. I showed my mom when I got home and she gave me a, "you crazy kid," kind of look. She knew I was having troubles with my tongue in the first place, and was surprisingly sympathetic, which is a nice change. She knew I was getting it redone, so she was okay with it.
I took a much more relaxed approach on aftercare this time. I started off with sipping ice water for a couple hours after the procedure. I decided to just heal with salt soaks this time. Let me tell you, its really disgusting to rinse with salt water. But it feels so good and makes my tongue very happy. I do salt rinses about 4 or 5 times a day. It's been 5 days since I got pierced and the swelling has gone down significantly. I've been able to eat all the food that I've wanted to, its just taken me a little longer than usual.
So – word of warning. If you experience gum recession, you probably aren't going to fix it. And it won't just go away. This has been my fourth good experience with Tony, and I do recommend him. It sucks that my new piercing had to be one I already had, but it is very much worth it.