Ever since the tender age of 14, I've desperately wanted my tongue pierced. Every time I would ask my mother, she would always give me a flat no. She had absolutely no reason to say no, but regardless she said it every time, without even thinking. Any other piercing I wanted she had no problem with. By the time I was 18 I had both sides of my nose, both tragus's, several in my ears, and my eyebrow pierced. I still couldn't convince her to let me get it done.
At A Glance Author WhiteTrashBeautiful Contact WhiteTrashBeautiful@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Martin Studio Nephty's Tattoo Location Sherbrooke Even after I moved out of the house, my mother always told me she never wanted me to get it done. When I mentioned even thinking about piercing my tongue, my mother basically flipped out (and even though I was 20, I still listened to her). Finally, I decided to do it. My Fiancé gave me some cash to do whatever I wanted with. So I called someone who at the time was my best friend, to see if she wanted to come and get pierced with me... and of course she did!
So we met up, got into my car, and I prepared myself for some major pain. On the way down there, I kept telling myself that it wouldn't hurt, and I'd be able to handle the pain. When we got to Nephty's Tattoo, My palms were sweating, and I was beyond nervous in a happy way.
We filled out all the forms, and went into the piecing room, so that Martin could prepare himself. He made me stick out my tongue, to see how far I could stick it out, which of course would become a problem. The web under my tongue was extremely long. It made sticking my tongue out far, painful and nearly impossible. He explained to me that he would still pierce it, but I would experience more discomfort due to the fact that my barbell would create friction against the web, and possibly leaving it with lesions. He also told me I could get my web cut at the dentist for a mere $150 (which seemed expensive to me for a little piece of skin...) , at that point, I didn't care, I wasn't leaving there without getting it down.
He gave me a cup of mouth wash, and told me to rinse and gargle for a minute. I went into the bathroom, and honestly, the mouthwash was by far the worst part of the whole experience. It stung, it made my eye water, the taste was horrendous, and I couldn't wait for it to be done and over with. Finally it was time...
I went back into the piercing room, where Martin directed me to lay down in the ever so familiar dentist's chair. He asked me to stick my tongue out as far as I could, which of course created some discomfort. He put the clamps on my tongue, which made the web hurt, but I dealt with it. Finally he put the needle through. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. He put the barbell in, and directed me to sit up, initially I felt dizzy, and had a rush of blood go to my head, but when I looked at my tongue in the mirror, I knew it was all worth it.
For the next few weeks, my tongue remained swollen, making it hard to eat, and talk. When the swelling went down after 6 weeks, I changed the jewelry to a barbell that was shorter in length, which made speaking much easier.
The only problems I ever had with the piercing was, at one point, my barbell came loose and I swallowed one of the balls. And the other problem I had was the Ball on the bottom created so much friction, that at one point, my web has a hole in it, which the barbell often got stuck in, and wrapped around the web. Eventually the web completely ripped, so now I no longer have one, so my tongue piercing saved me from paying $150 to get it cut. My mom was of course pissed when she found out about it, but eventually she warmed up to the idea, since it's really not visible most of the time. No matter how many issues I had with the piercing, I love it to death, and I'm so glad I finally got it done!!
A few suggestions to anyone thinking if piercing their tongue in the future would be to make sure you tighten the balls everyday on your barbell, and to use mouthwash as much as possible, it really helps with the swelling. My piercer told me never to get colored mouth washes because you're more susceptible to grow allergies to it, so I bought the antiseptic one, and regardless of how bad it tasted, it kept the infection out of my piercing.