Two years ago, I first saw a classmate with a center tongue piercing. At the time, I was intrigued but I thought that it must be annoying to have a piece of metal stuck right through your tongue. How did she eat and talk?
At A Glance Author Becca When It just happened Artist Tom Studio Ian's NYC Location St. Mark's Place, Manhattan I blew it off for a couple years... until a few months ago. I had the piercing itch (I already have 7 lobes) and I couldn't decide what to get. I searched endlessly through BMEzine galleries until I thought, why should it be the ears? When I saw the tongue piercing gallery, I knew right then and there that I wanted that done. The relatively quick healing time also was part of the reason I chose it.
I knew that my parents would not endorse this AT ALL so over the past month, I saved up some money and did some research on a studio that was not too far from me, but would pierce minors. I read the stories posted about Ians and they all had positive things to say. It would only be an hour commute from where I live in NJ. I chose a Friday to go, the first day of spring break, so it'd have 2 weeks to heal. A good friend of mine, Andrea (name changed), had been interested in a tongue piercing and came along with me.
Ian's working hours were 1-8 PM and we arrived there around 5. I noticed the small room in the back that looked like a doctor's examination room where I would be getting pierced. A friendly man at the counter (I didn't catch his name) helped me and asked me what I wanted. I told him, and he let me pick the jewelry from within the glass counter. I picked a 3/4" oilslick titanium barbell. The man picked it up WITH HIS BARE HANDS (a red flag to the more cautious) and handed it to Tom, the piercer, who then soaked it in a cup of Cepacol, a hospital-grade antibacterial mouthwash. Now, Tom had *at least* 4 lip rings and so I trusted his methods of cleaning, but they DID NOT have an autoclave. I paid my $27 for the jewelry and followed Tom into the piercing room.
Andrea came in the little room after me and held my hand tightly; I think she was more nervous than I was, heh. I was told to stick my tongue out as far as I could so Tom could dry my tongue & mark it with ink. He tucked some paper towel under my chin "in case I drooled". Mmm. He told me not to worry about the pressure as he clamped my tongue. After all the experiences I'd read about how the clamp hurts worse than the piercing, I found that it didnt bother me at all.
He then said, "I'm going to tell you when to breathe in and out." I closed my eyes. He told me, "Breathe in.... now OUT" and on the exhale, he pierced my tongue. I felt a pinch.
"Breathe in.... and out", and I felt him thread the jewelry into the needle. The pinching went away.
Breathe in... and breathe out", and he screwed the ball onto the bottom.
"okay, youre done!" I put my tongue back into my mouth and felt the metal balls clack against my teeth. It was over in 5 seconds. Andrea seemed amazed. "Dude.. you didn't even squeeze my hand that hard". I was surprised actually, it hurt less than the needle for donating blood.
On the way back to the train station, I picked up tons of aftercare stuff: a new toothbrush, Cepacol (which Tom swore by), Advil liquigels, and a cold bottle of water. I drank this cold water religiously on the way home, took some Advil, and at home, some multivitamins.
Healing had been uneventful so far -- a small shred of white, dying taste buds on top didnt surprise me -- that is, until this morning, Day 3. I woke up to find my lips partly crusted with blood, and a huge bubble/glob of it on the bottom ball of my piercing. I did a sea salt soak and spat out as much blood as I could, then used a dry Q-tip to remove the gunky blood. Right now, an hour later, I finally stopped spitting blood. After every meal, I washed with Cepacol. I suppose maybe I irritated it by not diluting it enough, or just by using it too often. I'm going to follow the advice of others and LITHA (leave it the hell alone) for a little while and see how it does. I've been taking multivitamins almost daily for the past month, which I think has helped it heal. To anyone who wants this piercing -- I recommend it highly, so far I've been doing fine with my Cepacol-cleaned barbell. I expect that I will have the bar in my jewelry changed after about another week. Happy piercing!