A couple of weeks before Christmas my girlfriend took me to a tattoo/piercing studio to have my tongue pierced - it was part of my Christmas gift. The idea of getting my tongue pierced was brought up months before, but it was only until recently that I thought 'Ok, I'll get it done'.
At A Glance Author Naka Contact Naka@bme.anon Artist Marina Studio Australian Ink Spot Tattoo and Body Piercing Studio Location Geelong, Victoria, Australia Anyways, we went to the piercing place at about ten in the morning. I filled out the form that clarifies everything about the piercing and then was taken back behind the counter for the piercing to be done.
The piercer, Marina, showed me the sterilised needle, barbell and tongs while I washed my mouth with some Listerine. Marina told me that the actual piercing was quite painless and wouldn't take long - I was still a bit nervous though. A big long needle through my tongue wasn't that appealing now.
After she told me to sit down and relax, Marina put the tong-clamp thingie on my tongue and pulled it into position - telling me to close my eyes and take deep breaths through my nose. Having my tongue out of my mouth like that made it hard t swallow, so, I dribbled quite a bit everywhere. I could feel the needle push through the bottom of my tongue and pop out the top. That was a really weird feeling, because having a needle pushed through my tongue didn't hurt at all - something I didn't expect.
Marina said that she was now putting the barbell in. I couldn't see how she was doing it, but it went in when the needle came out. She put the bottom ball onto the barbell which hurt a tiny bit because she was tugging on the barbell a little. All done, clamp came off and my tongue was back in my mouth again.
She told me not to get up for a little because my body needed time to react, or something. While I was still sitting down she told me about all the basic aftercare and what to use on my tongue. I was now really excited about having this done.
I got up and went back to my girlfriend, who was doubly as excited as I was. She paid the sixty dollars and we left with some friends to go see a movie. My tongue was pretty swollen which made talking funny.
The rest of that day went by pretty easily and painless - I was able to eat solid foods with no fuss and drink anything, washing my mouth out with Diflam-C (Antiseptic mouthwash) after everything. But, that night after tea I was eating potato chips by the handful when I accidentally bit down on the barbell and ripped my tongue a bit – very, very painful.
The next couple of mornings I woke up with my tongue a dark-red colour from a bit of bleeding from the piercing throughout the night. I thought that it was normal and didn't get worried. The third morning that I woke up, there was no blood.
After a week the swelling had subsided except for a little around the barbell itself - that was because there was a clearly visible tear, with a little chunk of skin popping up. Sometimes the bit of skin would go yellow and fall off. Soon after there would be another bit popping up in the same spot.
I went back to the studio to get it checked out. Marina said that it wasn't anything to be worried about. It was only a small tear that would soon heal up.
After about two weeks I stopped using the mouthwash and started to use salt water. It worked just as well – cheaper too.
The tear didn't heal much until after I got the barbell downsized three weeks later. Marina said that with a smaller barbell in place the tear should quickly heal. She was right. Right now it's been about a week since I got the shorter barbell and my tongue has almost completely healed up. There's no more tear, only a tiny bit of swelling which is going down.
My girlfriend is getting a bid impatient for me to 'use' it on her (down there) so I'm glad it's almost healed completely. I can hardly wait to use it on her.
So all up my tongue has, apart from a little bit of a tear, healed exceptionally well - no huge swelling, infection or any other dastardly life threatening things.
My tongue is the only other thing pierced along with my left lobe. Now, for some reason I'm hooked on getting more and more piercings all over my body. I'm in the current process of stretching my lobe. Let's hope that this goes well - I don't want to tear that. If that goes well, I might start to stretch my tongue piercing after a few months.