I had a number of piercings before I ever got my tongue pierced. I was never really interested in having my tongue done. It was the fad, and I wanted my tongue to be special, not the same as everyone else's.
At A Glance Author Andrew Contact Andrew@bme.anon IAM Kinderfeld69 When Six months ago Artist RenDi Studio Euphoric Body Art Location Middletown, NY I got my tongue pierced finally on January 23rd 2004. It was what I expected, not that bad. My speech never changed at all, I spoke just as I did before I had it. In time I stretched it to a 4 gauge.
My friend and now ex-girlfriend Heather had her tongue pierced twice. She had two off-center piercings, Venoms. I decided I wanted to get them, and possibly another bar behind the one I already had. So at the time I thought it would be great to have four in my tongue like a little diamond I suppose. It would be nice and special to me.
August 4th 2004, Heather and I drove out to Middletown, NY. Euphoric Body Art is where we were headed. RenDi is one of my piercers, he works there. The day was finally here, I was quite excited, and I couldn't wait.
So, we got there and hung out for a bit. I'm friends with everyone who works there so it was normal for me to just go over there after work or something and just hang out for a bit. The shop opens at 1pm; I think we got there around 2pm.
So I was a little nervous, but I knew everything would be alright. I was pretty damn wrong!
RenDi looked at my tongue, put some marks, found where they looked the best and would fit on my tongue with all the veins still intact. He made 2 marks and gave me the mirror. I said they look great, go for it.
First he removed my 4 gauge bar from my tongue to make it easier for him. I had no problem with this of course. He worked a bit, trying to get the clamp in the correct spot on my tongue. Once he was comfortable with where it was, he pierced and put the barbell in. It hurt a bit, but it was all expected.
Now it was time to do the second one. But there was a little problem, the first one was bleeding. So he said we should wait till the bleeding stops so it's not a problem for him to clamp and pierce the other side. I trusted what he thought, so I wasn't about to object. A little bit of blood can be quite common with tongue piercings, so it wasn't a big deal. They got me a little cup with some cold water in it, and it should stop in a minute or two. As long as my tongue hadn't swelled too much by the time the blood stopped, he would pierce the other side.
Well, time passes and my tongue is still bleeding. The cold water wasn't really helping. RenDi put my 4 gauge tongue bar back in, since my tongue was swollen too much to do the other piercing. Since Heather and I were planning on visiting the mall and going to see a movie, we were going to head out. RenDi told me to get something cold to drink, don't use a straw and it should stop in no time.
Heather and I went over to the mall; I got a large cup filled with ice water for my tongue. I stopped at work to show my friends, and then we were going to go see a movie. I had also bought some soft vanilla ice cream to try and help with the bleeding tongue. For the most part it tasted like ice cream, but there was definitely a blood taste to it.
Some of you may not understand exactly how much this is bleeding. Some people get their tongue pierced and there is a slight bit of blood. I was swallowing a significant amount of blood. If I did not swallow every 3 seconds or so, I would not be able to open my mouth because the blood would start flowing out. I went to the bathroom a number of times and rinsed my mouth with cold water. I would stand there with head over the sink and my mouth open, and the blood just poured out.
After the movie ended, I was still swallowing the same amount of blood as before the movie. I told Heather I wanted to go back over to Euphoric to see RenDi.
Once we go to Euphoric I told RenDi I was still bleeding. He took us back to his part of the shop, the piercing room. He had me sit down and took a look at my tongue. I told him that if I kept my mouth open, blood was going to get all over, so he had put a little bib on me.
So he started looking at my tongue, and picking at it, pulling this little blood-clot film off of my tongue. That was pretty gross; it was just a filmy bloody layer covering my tongue. He told me that a styptic solution would help, but they didn't have any in the shop right now. So that sucked.
We then left to head back to the mall. We were going to go to this little restaurant in the mall, American Café I think it was called. They have pretty good food, but I didn't think I was going to eat since I was still swallowing blood. I ended up ordering this one dish they have that I like a lot, I figured I would pick at it a bit and wrap most of it up.
I had excused myself to go to the bathroom a few times during dinner so I could stop swallowing the blood and just let it poor out for a minute or two. I had been drinking ice water all through dinner. Nothing was helping. As we were walking out to the car I let the blood build up in my mouth for a few seconds and spit it out just to show Heather how much it was actually bleeding. She couldn't believe it.
I called RenDi since they were getting close to closing, and asked him what I should do. He didn't really have an answer. I was sad, mad, and a little scared I suppose. RenDi and the owner suggested I go to a store, like Wal-Mart and try to find a styptic solution or something that is designed to help stop bleeding. Unfortunately they didn't have a damn thing that would have been useful.
So, it was night time by now. Most stores were closed. We were headed home. I dropped Heather off, gave her a hug, and she wished me luck. I drove home, went inside and plopped down on the couch in the living room. I was sitting at my laptop, while my mother was at her computer which was in the same room. I started talking to my friend Ericka on-line. I told her a short version of my day. I told her I was afraid to sleep because I would choke on it, and I didn't know what to do. She told me she was worried and she thought I needed to seek medical attention.
Normally I don't tell my mom about my new piercings because she just yells at me and gives me shit about wasting my money. I looked over to her and said "Mom... I wasn't going to tell you this, but because of my particular situation, I have to. I got my tongue pierced around 3 today, and it's still bleeding." She looked on-line and told me I should try to apply pressure to it. I didn't quite understand how to apply pressure to my tongue, but I tried. I stuck my tongue out, and put the middle of a piece of gauze on the bottom of my tongue, then wrapped the ends over to the top of my tongue and held down. The gauze would be soaked through in seconds and dripping into the sink. It was no use.
My mother was mostly in the bathroom with me while I was trying to apply pressure to my tongue to help the bleeding. I told her I thought it was pointless, and it was, it wasn't helping. I told her I was going to take the barbell out, since I knew it wouldn't stop bleeding with the jewelry in; it had been bleeding for about 10 hours and it wasn't slowing at all. My mom wanted to take me to the hospital but I told her no, because they were just going to remove the jewelry, and stitch up my tongue. Unfortunately it was getting close to that.
I had a few pairs of latex gloves that I was using throughout this process. I wanted to try to keep my hands clean, and it made it easier to hold the gauze. So I put on a clean pair, and looked at my very swollen tongue. I tried to grab the balls but my tongue was so swollen that I couldn't. I looked at it carefully and I noticed it wasn't swollen that much, it was the blood clots that were forming on my tongue. It took a few tries to pull anything off, but I removed disgusting filmy clots from my tongue, teeth and lips. My mom then told me she was going to sleep; she was going to puke if she watched. She said if I wanted her to bring me to the hospital to wake her up. I said goodnight and got back to work.
After I managed to remove all of the filmy clots from my mouth, I knew it was time to take the barbell out. I didn't want to have to do this, but I knew that if I didn't there was no way it would stop bleeding. Ericka had told me, and I knew that it would stop bleeding much faster without a bar through it, since it would be able to close up and heal easier.
So it was the moment of truth, I would remove the bar, and my exhausting day could finally come to an end. I took a breath, stuck my tongue out, unscrewed the balls and pulled the bar out. My torment should be over now, right? Wrong!
So earlier, I had to swallow blood every few seconds, after taking this barbell out, I couldn't even swallow the blood anymore. The blood was pouring out of my mouth. I tried rinsing my mouth out with cold water, but nothing was helping. I stood there, blood pouring out and I thought I was going to have to wake my mom up, and go to the hospital. I was scared; there was nothing I could do to stop this bleeding. I tried to look at my tongue in the mirror and I saw a stream of blood pump out of my tongue and spray across the mirror and wall of the bathroom. I couldn't believe it, it was exactly what you would see in the movie.
After I saw it squirt all over the wall, I realized I could feel the blood pumping out and hitting the roof of my mouth. I stood there with my mouth open, blood pouring into the sink. All I could do was stay there, hunched over, with my arms resting on the edges of the sink holding myself up. I didn't know what to do, I was genuinely scared. I felt exhausted; I didn't know what to do anymore. I knew I was going to have to wake my mom up, and have her drive me to the hospital.
After just letting the blood flow for a while, it started to slow down. I knew this was definitely a good thing. I tried putting a piece of ice in my mouth and it started to bleed more again, so I spit the ice out immediately and waited. The bleeding slowed down, and stopped... finally.
It was about 12:30am. My tongue had been bleeding for about 10 hours. After waiting for a bit, to make sure it wasn't going to bleed again, I went to sleep. Before I went to sleep I sent an instant message to my friend Ericka via AIM of course, to let her know I was alright.
So for the next three days, I had one of the worst stomach aches ever. I figure I swallowed about a pint and a half of blood; I lost more than two. I felt dizzy and tired for the next couple days as well.
This was my most horrific piercing ever. I called up RenDi the next day, let him and the people in the shop know I was alright and that I had to remove the bar. I told RenDi that I would be in to have my tongue pierced again, but this time we can put the barbell behind my four gauge, not to the side of it. Tongue piercings from now on will stay in the middle of my tongue, no more off-center tongue piercings for me!