My first piercing was my tongue, which I got done in October of 1994. When I was reading up before getting pierced I didn't find much about keeping a piercing for a long period of time, only about the initial healing and the cultural meaning, so hopefully I'll be able to provide a little longer-term experience for those who might like to read it. (I'm writing this in December 2006)
At A Glance Author floz Contact floz@bme.anon When Ten years ago or more Artist John Cobb Studio Gauntlet Location New York, NY My girlfriend at the time wanted to get her tongue pierced, so I got mine done too - I knew that if I didn't get mine done at the same time, I'd never get my nerve up. (I didn't want to go through life knowing she was punker than me, though she really was) We had each read as much info as we could easily find on the subject - I don't remember what online resources there were in those days, but I do remember reading Modern Primitives. She had a number of ear piercings, mostly lobes and maybe one cartilage, but this was to be her first non-ear piercing. She was at college in New York and we had learned that the prime place to go was Gauntlet, so during one of my visits we went to their studio to get pierced. Our piercer was John Cobb; we didn't know who he was, but he seemed knowledgeable and confident, so we were at ease with him doing our piercings. We decided to go with the standard 12 gauge.
She went first. She had a long tongue, so placement was easy and she took it like a champ. My tongue has a pretty restrictive web/frenum, so John decided to do my piercing at a steep angle, which made sense at the time based on the visibility/usability we wanted. The bottom would be pretty far toward the front to avoid interfering with the frenum, and the top was about as far back as he could reasonably make it. (I think the theory was that it looked better if you got it further back) I don't think much thought went into which side of the frenum my piercing would go on - if it was discussed, it was only in passing. Anyway, when the needle went through, I was not prepared for the pain and pretty much blacked out for a second. John was surprised, but after the initial shock of it, he and we just relaxed until it was clear it was just a momentary thing. We were sent home with the standard instructions and smiles on our faces.
The aftercare and healing were pretty easy and typical: regular use of mouthwash, no smoking (neither of us did) and no mouth contact with others - that was the most difficult part. (Much as we liked smooching and the oral sex, we made do with hugging and boinking) A few days after getting pierced, I went back to my job doing telephone fundraising and had no problems with my voice or pronunciation - I had had careful diction before, and was even more careful with the new piercing. When the initial swelling went down, I did get a bit of clicking until I switched to a shorter barbell. After that, it was quite rare for anyone to notice I had the piercing unless I showed it to them.
After the first three months passed, my girlfriend and I were excited to try kissing with the tongue rings; the sensual pleasure of it was half the reason we wanted to get them done. It turned out to be pretty disappointing. There was no new magic, no exotic spice; we were still the same people, we just had these bars through our tongues. After she and I broke up, it did work like a charm with others, though; to them it was part of the mysterious, dangerous, sensuous package that was me... tongue piercings were less common in those days, and I was usually happy to milk it for what it was worth. The jewelry itself didn't much change the way I kissed or used my tongue (or improve my ability to communicate with my lovers, which I since learned is more important than technique) but the fact that I paid more attention to my tongue and exercised it more (playing with the jewelry) likely meant that I was better able to do what I wanted to do with my tongue.
As the years went by, I periodically noticed things that I hadn't read about or thought about before. Pretty early on, I switched length down to a shorter barbell, but had a couple of minor problems. First, because of the steep angle and consequently relatively long bit of flesh the jewelry went through, the movement of my tongue would significantly change the length of jewelry I needed. Though the shorter barbell was usually just right, the balls sitting flush with the surface at either end, there were many times when I was eating, or even just sitting and fidgeting, when the angle of my tongue would mean it was too short, causing the lower ball to irritate my tongue web. When it was irritated, I would play with it more, causing it to get worse, so I'd switch out my shorter jewelry for a longer barbell.
Though the longer jewelry was generally more comfortable, it unfortunately also had problems. Again, the angle and length of the piercing meant that as my tongue moved, it changed how much of the jewelry stuck out. There were times while eating when the excess length led to my barbell accidentally ending up between my teeth. On rare occasions, I would end up biting down on one of the balls, and about eight years after I got the piercing I cracked a tooth on it. Though that tooth had a big cavity in it and would have probably needed a crown in a couple of years anyway, biting down hard on steel is something I would have preferred to avoid even on the occasions when it didn't end up cracking a tooth.
At some point I stretched up to 10 gauge, and after having had the piercing for a number of years, it was not a difficult transition. I had been wearing the longer jewelry before I did the switch, and I would regularly flip my tongue over and hold the jewelry between my teeth, stretching the hole, or at least stretching the ends of the hole. It was pretty well prepared to fit something larger, though the center of the piercing (furthest from the surface) had stretched the least and was somewhat irritated by the stretching. My only other problem with stretching was at times when I took the jewelry out for a few hours; I would sometimes have trouble inserting the 10 gauge jewelry again. When that happened, I would just use my 12 gauge barbell for a few days until it stretched out again.
The solution I finally found for my problems with length was something that people recommended against: I wore a plastic retainer most of the time. I was able to wear it at the shorter length, so it wouldn't stick out and get caught between my teeth, and the small size of the bottom meant that my tongue web didn't get irritated nearly as easily. Each time I spoke with a piercer about getting different jewelry or a different retainer, they would tell me the retainers wouldn't last more than three months and that I shouldn't wear it while eating. My first experience with a retainer was not what they said it would be: I wore one for about three years, taking it out very rarely, without it breaking or losing the o-ring. The retainers I've bought and worn more recently haven't been nearly as durable; most of them break in less than a year, and o-rings would come off on their own about once a month. I also have had a lot of trouble finding retainers that fit, both in the thickness and length that I need, with a flat top, rounded bottom and an indentation for the o-ring to sit in. I learned that small variations in any characteristics of the retainer made a huge difference to my comfort.
With or without the retainer, I noticed another issue: the gums at the back of my front lower teeth were gradually receding, and they sometimes got sore depending on the jewelry I wore, and somewhat depending on the sharpness/roundness of the bottom if I was wearing a retainer at the time. At that point I was having a couple of other concerns with my teeth, so I started wearing my tongue jewelry only during the daytime. I also stopped wearing tongue jewelry when I was nervous or hyper; when I was nervous or hyper, I would rub my tongue side-to-side against my front teeth, which would rub the jewelry against my gums, making them sore.
Something else I have discovered is that I don't need to wear jewelry to keep the hole any longer. I had been told that taking out the jewelry for more than a few hours would mean my piercing would close up, but after years of wearing the jewelry this was no longer the case for me. After five or eight years, I could take the jewelry out for a day at a time and fit it back in without any trouble. Now, twelve years on, I don't wear jewelry in it at all, yet the piercing remains. I occasionally stick a skewer or the tines of a fork through it to show people I've still got the hole.