I had wanted to get my tongue pierced since i was 12 (that's about 6 years ago), but my mom would never let me. Finally I grew to be more and more interested in the body mod scene and decided that I really wanted it done. As I waited for my mom to decide to allow this to happen the trend became more and more popular. I couldn't stand following this trend so i decided that I wanted to do something different. I wondered for probably 2 years if you could pierce the webbing of your tongue.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon Artist Jim Studio Avant Garde Location West Allis Wi I wasn't at all sure about this type of piercing because when i was in kindergarten the kids would tell me that my webbing was too thin and my tongue was going to roll in the back of my mouth. I was always skeptical of my tongue and never really wanted anything to happen to it because this scared me. Even being the age of 16 i was still a little gullible.
I asked a couple people that I knew about this type of piercing and I called a couple of shops and mostly all of them told me no it cannot be done. I did find this hard to believe. I looked on BME and there were numerous pictures of this type of piercing. I decided that I would go and drive around for other shops that might be willing to do this piercing. Since numerous shops had told me it cant be done I decided that I needed someone with lots of experience and never thought Id get that for a decent amount of money.
My boyfriend wanted to get his labret pierced and we drove around looking for shops. We drove past Avant-Garde and seen a sign that said "all piercings $15-35" we didn't believe it so we stopped in. Sure enough all piercings were $15-35.
we looked around the shop and it was nice and clean. The girl at the counter was really nice and explained to us that Jim was a master piercer there and he had been piercing for more than 30 years. She also explained the sterilization process and it all sounded good to us.
I figured since he's been piercing for so long that i would ask him if you could pierce the webbing of a tongue and he told me sure. So at that i was real excited, gave them my drivers license, filled out the form, paid, and hopped up on that table.
I was new to this whole tongue webbing piercing thing so i asked what kind of jewelry was going to be used. He recommended that i went with a captive bead ring and the smallest gauge possible. So he used a 18 gauge by 3/8 in length captive bead ring. I wanted a colored one but the counter person suggested that I used a surgical steel one ( i cant remember her exact words) because the color would fade off quick with all of the cleaning I would be doing, so instead of the colored I used the surgical steel
First thing he did was wash his hand then he put on gloves and handed me listerine. i rinsed my mouth out with listerine, and then he marked his spot with this purple stuff and showed me. I was asked to lay down. One guy held my tongue with the forceps as the master piercer held my webbing with a set of penningtons. I was so excited as i felt the needle slide thru. It didn't even hurt i was so shocked. The jewelry was quickly pushed thru and then the bead had to be put on.
Getting the bead on was the hardest part. I had to keep my tongue up so he could get a little bitty bead on. This took a minute or so but finally it was on. I jumped up and looked in the mirror. it was the greatest thing i ever saw. I was then told how to take care of it which was pretty easy. I waited the 5 minutes for my boyfriends labret to be pierced and we were on our happy marry way!
My tongue swelled very little and i was kind of scared that I would rip it or pull it by talking so i was scared to. but after i got over that fear it was fine, Afterall I cant keep quiet that long.
Everyone i showed it to was extremely amused. Everyone except my mom who i hadn't told or showed. She only seen it one day while i was at school and she brought me medicine. I even showed a friend of mines father who was a doctor and he said that the piercer did a fantastic job because that's a dangerous place to pierce which is probably why everyone else told me it couldn't be done.
I go back to that shop to get all of my piercings done.