Ok so I love all of my piercings, I may not have that many, but they're all good. One that I have grown especially fond of though is my tongue-web. I think that I've had it for almost a year and a half now, ya, I got it done around June of '05, I remember now. It was a very easy piercing, and honestly didn't hurt much at all. There isn't much pain associated with it since it's just two thin pieces of skin. The worse part of it was trying to keep my mouth open for long enough and wide enough so that the artist could do his thing. I remember laying flat on my back with my head off the edge of the table and this big hairy tattooed guy forcing as much finger as he could get under my little tongue, while two of my friends stood back and laugh at my awkwardness of course! He pierced it with a little ring that I haven't changed since.
At A Glance Author dirtyslave916 Contact dirtyslave916@bme.anon When It just happened Studio Boneheads Location Sacramento After being kinda sore for a few weeks, mainly when I did certain things like cough, laugh or smile big, there wasn't really too much aftermath. I mean the actual piercing spot did get pretty infected at one point in time, but after some tender love and care it healed just wonderfully. (Biotene is the mouthwash that my piercer gave me I believe, but I ended up just using the good ol' diluted Listerine solution. Can't go wrong with the classics.) Oh and I have to admit that I did talk a little funny for a while afterwards. I wasn't used to this little metal ring chillin under my tongue, and everyone could tell that something was a little off. My speech impediment went away eventually when I got used to my new web, but as soon as that was gone, I formed a new habit that was just as annoying I'm sure! I love playing with the ring with my tongue. I rattle it all around in my mouth, and if something really has me going, I can get pretty loud with it. (This is really where my current problems are stemming from I suppose, but ill get to that in just a bit.)
I ended up loving this piercing mainly because I don't usually see that many other people with it I think. It was also much nicer than the normal tongue piecing because I worked in the public eye... Well a pre-school to be exact, and a conservative one at that, so obviously a blatant new tongue piercing would not fly too well with my site director. With my web I got the best of both worlds. Sure, I got to go through the fun and excitement of getting and taking care of a new piercing, but I was also able to hide it as well as I needed to. No one knew that I had my web pierced, unless I had previously showed off my new pride and joy to them of course. (When I was caught in the act of ring rattling, or whatever you wanna call that clinking sound caused by the boredom of my tongue, I was almost always able to come up with some other random excuse as to what it was.)
Ok well now that I have provided all of that excess information, now on to the event that actually inspired this story...
So, I went to the dentist today. I hadn't been in over two years due to the fact that I've been moving around a lot lately (Sacramento to San Diego to Sacramento again mainly). And I was somewhat worried about what my childhood dentist was gunna say about my web. I didn't figure that people in that profession would be too fond of any type of mouth piercing, but much to my surprise, he wasn't too disgusted with it at all. He actually thought it was really interesting and said, I quote: "I've never seen one of those before." This made me happy to hear of course since he is paid to look in mouths all day and must see some crazy shit. (But then on the other hand it made me realize that I need a more worldly dr.!) anyways, his amusement did not last long into the cleaning process. He soon came to the discovery that although my nifty little tongue thing may look pretty awesome, it has started to do some permanent gum damage. After taking a few pictures to back up the bad news he was about to break to me, my dentist informed me that due to the constant friction and agitation that the gums behind my two front bottom teeth were getting from my ring, the gum line was quickly residing. I guess now after a year and a half of non-stop tongue web wearing goodness, the teeth are starting to tell me they don't like it. His professional opinion to me was that I should seriously think about removing the ring sometime soon, (within the next year at the latest). If not I could easily lose my two bottom teeth. Apparently they can't do gum graphs there since the gums are so thin at that location.
Now I'm faced with this dilemma, keep my teeth, or keep my piercing... and that's not really all that easy of a decision. I'm thinking that if I just change my ring to a bar instead my gum situation could be solved, but I'm really not sure. I think that may just make it wear down the gums in a different spot, but hey, I guess that'll buy me at least a few more years! Oh who am I kidding... I'll probably make a trip in to my piercer this week, sure I love my teeth, but I love my web too! I just have to figure out how to save it.
"SAVE THE WEB PIERCINGS! GUMS ARE FOR LOSERS!"