First things first, despite the title my web wasn't terrible so much as a large surprise. Most people describe them as relatively easy, painless and incredibly easy to care for, mine didn't fall into these categories though. Alas however, I'm getting ahead of myself.
At A Glance Author Absinthe Contact aerynsam@gmail.com IAM Absinthe When A week ago Artist Carl Studio Millenium Location Southampton, England After falling head over heels in love with my standard centre tongue piercing I decided that I'd love more metal in my mouth but I wasn't really sure about how I might go about it, I wasn't a particular fan of smiley piercings (at least not on me) and I felt pretty much the same way about any more tongue piercings. For whatever reason I never really thought too much about the possibility of a web, I didn't know anyone with one and didn't really think to look on BME.
After a while I got to talking to Steph (IAM:Silver_tongued) who had two web piercings and sang the praises of them to me, this prompted my decision that this just might be the answer to my desires. Anyway, after a month or so of uni preparation I'd nearly forgotten about piercing altogether until two days before I left. I headed into town one last time and found myself in Millenium once again chatting to Carl, I'd gone in with the intention of having my septum pierced with a retainer. Unfortunately however it had to be practically indiscernible at the time which we decided wasn't really achievable. Suddenly, my disappointment turned to inspiration as I asked him whether he could do tongue webs, he smiled and said "Yeah, sure. Tricky little fuckers though" With that we bounded on up the stairs to the piercing room and got to organising the tools for the job. I was a little surprised when he told me he was going to be piercing it at 1.6mm (14ga) as I'd assumed that something a little smaller would be used, I figured that being larger might help healing and it's chances of staying put so all was good.
Carl had me stick my tongue up into the roof of my mouth and packed the underneath of it with some gauze to dry the area out. Once that was done he made a tiny mark to help him guide the needle through straight. Once that was done he picked up the clamp and placed it on warning me that this part could be quite uncomfortable. I've always found that when a piercer says "This could be uncomfortable" you know it's going to be worse than you'd hoped! The feeling of the clamp was like a thick, dull aching through the bottom of my tongue and into the fleshy part of my upper mandible. He pulled the clamp forward so that the needle would have room to come all the way through without my cheeks getting in the way which added a sharpness to proceedings. With that, Carl grabbed the needle (which had been opened up in front of me earlier on) and with a quick check against the hole, began pushing into the side of my web. I was shocked at just how much pain started to radiate from my mouth through my whole body, it came through halfway and then Carl had to make one last adjustment to his hold and then pushed it through the rest of the way. A tear leapt out of my eye following the sting of the exit through the skin and the worst was over. I was left with my mouth wide open and a needle spread widthways across my face while he slid the needle from the catheter and pulled the ring into the end and began threading it through. Just before he began the threading through he remarked "Now for the hard part, for me anyway" and I made a noise that is the closest you can get to laughter with a needle in your mouth. A quick pull and the ring itself was in and now we just needed to get the ball in to seal the deal so to speak. This part went surprisingly well and we were finished in seconds.
I was advised to use a salt soak twice a day with luke warm water and to leave it well alone. I always tend to avoid things like a lot of coffee or spicy foods after piercings as I find that for me, they can make healing a little harder. Other than that aftercare was minimal and relatively problem free for three days then on the fourth morning after the piercing I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth, I went straight for the mirror and found the ring covered in a thick, gloopy blood that took a good deal of cleaning with a cotton bud and my usual salt soakings. After this setback I got through the next two weeks with no problems at all except that eating became rather laborious process due to the swelling limiting my tongues movement. I had to be very careful about talking as well due to the possibility of the bottom ball of my tongue bar catching in the ring and pulling the web clean out. My tongue has gotten used to it's presence now and problems are virtually non-existent about three weeks on. My web is nice and deep and feeling great, there's nothing better than the look of surprise when people notice it and enquire.
Whatever it was that caused my web to be more painful than most I don't know but I'd still happily go through it again for the end result I have now. If anyone has any questions about the procedure or anything else then just drop me an e-mail at aerynsam@gmail.com and I'll be happy to get back to you. Thanks for reading!