So after lots of begging my mom finally realized that this wasn't a little phase I was going to grow out of and let me get my tongue pierced yesterday... hooray! Of course she wanted to waste as much time as possible hoping I would change my mind so we went grocery shopping, clothes shopping, went to the bank and everywhere else in town! Boy did I have some pretty bad butterflies in my tummy :)
At A Glance Author bug Contact bug@bme.anon When It just happened Artist Jeanie Studio Downtown tattoo Location Albany, Or Well we finally get there and I'm super excited, there was even a parking spot right up front waiting for us. We go inside and are immediately greeted by Jeanie. I tell her I want my tongue pierced, fill out the paper work, she checks ID's, all that good stuff! And then the scary part...
We follow her back to the piercing room and I can't get the smile off my face. (haha I get silly when I'm nervous) This being my thirteenth piercing I knew it wouldn't hurt too awful bad but hey, a needle was about to go through my tongue. So I sit down on the dentist type chair and she asks if I have any questions first and I say no. (This is where the story gets a little blurry in my mind haha) So she puts on gloves, has me rinse with mouthwash, starts setting everything up, shows me the barbell (14 gauge) and marks my tongue. I look in the mirror and it's perfect :). (Here we go.. ahh!)
She gets me a drool bib, clamps my tongue and tells me to stick it out as far as I can. This is where I close my eyes and start to get really nervous! She tells me to inhale, so I take a deep breath, then she told me to exhale and I didn't want to because I knew this was it but I did anyways and she pierced it. (ahh again!)
I guess it hurt a little, but mostly there was just a lot of pressure and then I felt it go through. She told me to make sure I keep my tongue out and she put the barbell in which stung a bit. Then she put the ball on and told me to watch my teeth as I put my tongue back in my mouth. Oh man was that weird. It felt like the barbell was SO long but when I looked in the mirror it was perfect :).
She went over aftercare, no kissing, no smoking, no alcohol, no yogurt, no spicy food, and use a non-alcohol based mouthwash after eating and drinking and all that good stuff. She asked if I had any questions about a thousand times but I didn't. She told me I could come back in two weeks to get a shorter barbell and gave me a card with her hours in case anything happened or I had any questions. I paid, gave her a tip and thanked her a million times and we were off.
Learning to swallow and talk again on the car ride home was fun. I can say just about everything but 'th' is kind of hard because the barbell gets in the way. When I got to my house I took an ibuprofen and spent about an hour in the mirror trying to figure out how to move my tongue without snagging my barbell on my teeth. I tried to eat some pudding which was funny! I had to take a drink of water after every bite so my teeth wouldn't be brown. And I even managed to get a piece or two of thin crust pizza down. :) Probably not a good idea but hey, it's hard to pass up thin crust pizza.
For aftercare I'm using Crest Pro-Health mouthwash, taking ibuprofen every few hours and pretty much just leaving it alone and trying not to move it too much. Day one went wonderfully; there was no swelling at all and very minimal pain. When I woke up this morning it was pretty darn swollen. After I brushed my teeth and took an ibuprofen it calmed down though. I'm getting used to having it and talking is easier. I made some Jello and have been eating canned fruit and milkshakes. I still eat and brush my teeth in front of a mirror for fear of snagging it though.
In the end I'm glad my mom made me wait as long as she did, it gave me time to research and find BME. I would advise anybody thinking about getting any modification to read as many experiences as they can on here to make sure they want it for the right reasons. BME will definitely be hearing from me a lot more when I turn 18 in six months. :)