At A Glance
Author	MetalBitch
Contact	MetalBitch@bme.anon
When	A week ago
Artist	Marie
Studio	Marie's house
Location	Abingdon, Oxford, UK

I am now in the second week of having a gorgeous tongue piercing!!

I have wanted to have my tongue pierced since I was 7 when I saw a woman with it done, I loved it from there, but.., you know..its my tongue, I'm rather protective of it!!Oh, and there was the problem of my parents promising to kick me out if I got it done!

Anyways, fast forward 12 years. I had just faced a major fear of the dentist and finished having a lot of work done, so I was feeling pretty brave, as you would!So I felt it was time for a new piercing, and actually, in reality, my last piercing, I will be going to university to study to be a primary school teacher in the summer, and I have a strange feeling that they might frown on someone with 16 relatively visible piercings, let alone any more!!

For a long time I have really liked tongue, lip, and nipple piercings, but with lip piercing being the most visible and my fiance not liking female nipple piercings, (although he has both his pierced!), I chose to have my tongue pierced, and my fiance decided to have 5 cartilage piercings.

So I rang my regular piercer, Marie, she's done all my piercings except for lobe and upper ear cartilage, and she has helped me through 2 failed belly button piercings, so I have a lot of respect for her. I booked both mine and my fiances piercings one after the other for 1 weeks time, I knew that as soon as I make the appointment I would never back out.

The dreaded day came! I had my last meal, although not a lot of it as I was extremely nervous, as I said I'm rather protective of my tongue! It was nice and sunny so we walked to her house, she has a separate room in her house specially for her piercing which I suppose is why it is so calming, as it is her house, it still smells clean and there's all the packaged needles, but it doesn't feel like a piercing parlour, it feels like your going to visit a friends home!

I wanted to go first as I hate waiting in her kitchen thinking about what Im about to do, so I went straight up. She sat me down and we had a chat while she prepared everything and then she told me to stick my tongue out, she sprayed it with the most disgusting tasting stuff I had ever tasted in my life!She said it was supposed to taste like banana, but even she said "supposed to"!

So for about 5 minutes I had to sit there with my tongue feeling like bubble gum spitting out any excess spit, then she marked my tongue, the first time wasn't quite right as I wanted it really far back so it'd be really hard to see, now explaining this while you can't feel your tongue is soooo hard, but she still understood!

So she marked it a bit further back and got the clamps ready, I have never felt panic like that particular moment, then she pushed the needle through and I'm just going to say OW!!Admitently some of the numbing stuff had worn off but either way OW!!Maybe it was because I didn't expect it to hurt as everyone told me my tragus would hurt and I didn't feel it, and then everyone said tongue piercings are nothing compared to that, and I wasn't overly prepared for any pain, but it only lasts a second so nothing to cry about!

She put the bar in and tightened the ball which felt fine and then she took me to the sink and handed me a cup of water and told me to rinse and spit continuously for a while. When I spat it was full of blood and stringy, but that was ok as we had a good laugh about how lady-like it was!Eventually it got thinner and she told me to gently do some tongue rolls and if my legs got weak to sit down, but I was fine, no head rush, in fact no after-pain at all!

When all this was done my fiance had his piercings and we were ready to leave to buy some Oraldene, Rinstead pastilles and ibuprofen. But the best part of the cleaning regime, by far, is that she told me to have a big glass of double vodka and coke with lots of ice everynight, what an excuse to drink!

I was managing food well, as long as I put it behind the ball as it was confusing to get the food without the ball, and I was moving on to more solid foods, until 5 days after the piercing, I awoke to a few mouth ulcers which made it a bit difficult, the next day there were loads more and I decided to call Marie, just my luck it had to be the day she was away on holiday, but her husband told me it would be fine to call the next day as even though it was a public holiday he understood I didn't want to put up with it if I was in pain.

The next day I couldn't talk, I had a least 15 ulcers, most of which were on my tongue, so my fiance rang and she said it sounded like I was allergic to Oraldene and to change to warm salt water. And yes it worked, the next day I went back to her for my first bar change and I could talk, I was still in a lot of pain and by this point I was relatively unhappy and actually feeling like I wish I hadn't had it done.

Its now 6 days since then and there isn't one ulcer in my mouth and hasn't been for a few days, I can eat whatever I want now and Im not in any pain, and I even realised that some good came from the ulcers as I have dropped a clothes size and now I am a tiny UK6!! But I'm sure that won't last too long now that I can eat again!

So what can I say to you about tongue piercings, well look, I've had a relatively bad experience but less than 2 weeks later I LOVE my new piercing, I have not bit the ball or chipped any teeth, I've not developed a brain tumor or a heart clot, I am perfectly healthy, my parents even found out and have decided they will not pester me in the future about my body mods!If you want it, do it!It's the easiest piercing I've had in terms of cleaning, and I imagine it'll be the most fun when I finally get to try it out!!

Just go for it!!