I'm not the first to say it. There are not a lot of people where I live that are really into body modification. In fact, aside from the ear piercing at Claire's and Afterthoughts, we only have two places that do piercing and tattooing.
At A Glance Author lindsey Contact lindsey@bme.anon IAM superlindsey When A month ago Artist myself Location north dakota I was at a local café's Open Mic night with some friends, and I met a friend of a friend, Vanessa (fiftytwochameleons on IAM). She mentioned how her mouth was sore and proceeded to show us her newly pierced tongue web. I thought it was kind of different, but it didn't strike me as anything I'd ever want, mainly because I knew my dad would never go for it.
After a few days on BME of looking at pictures and reading stories, I started to get hooked on the whole tongue web thing. Vanessa had done hers by herself, and eventually took it out because she couldn't find suitable jewelry. The thought of doing my own piercing, especially in my mouth, was hardly in my mind. I figured I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing.
I went to the piercing place across from my house and asked if they did tongue web piercings. The guy gave me an odd look, said he was new, and went to the back room to ask the guy with the most experience if they did them. He returned and told me that they didn't, and I left rather disappointed. I had even convinced my mom to let me get this done, and I wasn't going to give up. I called the other local place but they hadn't heard of it, so they definitely didn't do it.
I had really grown attached to the idea of having my tongue web pierced by now, so I decided to do it myself. I read every single story on BME that I could find about self done tongue webs so I would know what to do and what to avoid. I looked at tons of pictures so I would know exactly where it should be placed. I looked through my mom's sewing supplies and picked out a needle that was probably close to 16g. I knew it wasn't the best way to go about doing this, but I was desperate. I found a hoop earring to use with the intention of buying a CBR later that night.
I set out some paper towels and cleaned off the jewelry, the needle, and a pair of tweezers in case I'd need them. I rinsed my mouth with Listerine. I turned on a bright lamp and proceeded to poke around underneath my tongue. I shoved the needle halfway through and realized the flesh was moving with the needle, so instead of going through, it was just stretching. I grabbed a washcloth and held it on the other side and continued pushing the needle through and used the washcloth to hold the web in place. I got the needle through with pretty much no pain, took it out, and tried to shove the ring through. I lost the hole. In reality, I didn't mind because poking the needle though hadn't hurt and I kind of wanted to do it again and get better placement. The worst part was the gooey spit dripping around and messing things up.
Again, I cleaned off the jewelry and needle and poked. The needle was slightly dulled this time and was a little harder to get through. I finally got the jewelry in. I closed the hoop and rinsed my mouth out with diluted Listerine. I was really excited about it and took a few webcam pictures to show my friends. The rest of the night, it was really swollen and I drank ice water and had trouble eating anything with substantial value.
Later that night, it became really sore. I was at a party and had been showing it to people and playing with it. I had bought another smaller ring and tried to put it in a few times, but could never get it closed. I eventually gave up and took the jewelry out and felt instantly better, but slightly naked.
A few weeks later, after it had healed fairly well, I decided to do it again. This time I bought a curved barbell and a nice new pack of needles. I cleaned everything as well as I could and carried it to the bathroom on a clean paper towel. I washed my hands and rinsed out my mouth with Listerine. I had a washcloth ready to help soak up the massive amounts of saliva and hold the web in place this time, as well.
I looked in my mouth for awhile to make sure I had the best possession and shoved a (roughly) 14g needle through. It was slightly hard to poke through the hardened tissue from before, but I had no extreme complications, and no blood, just like before. I got the barbell through fine, but because it was so tiny, it took awhile to get the ball screwed on. After I finally got it on, I rinsed with the diluted Listerine/water solution. For the next couple of weeks, I carried a small bottle of Listerine around and rinsed any time I ate or drank anything that wasn't water. There was a tiny bit of swelling, but it didn't hurt half as much as the previous attempt.
It's been over a month now, and it's pretty much healed. The only problems I have are the times when the ball comes loose and falls off. There's some awful tasting discharge, so I usually just rinse the hole and the jewelry really well with Listerine and put it back in.
I really love my pierced tongue web, because no one sees it unless I show them. My mom knows about it and doesn't care, but my dad has never noticed it. It's not distracting and therefore not a problem for jobs. I definitely recommend this for someone who's run out of other places to pierce (ha!) but try to get it done professionally, as that's far safer than a self piercing. (: