A Tip of the Slongue
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Rick Gilmour Studio Adorned Location Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I have a small rule for piercings and tattoos and that is before I get anything done I have to make absolutely, positively sure I want and need them. I believe that each should be a meaningful experience and not just some random event. So, after debating with myself for about two months, I decided to get my tongue pierced.
Picking a shop lasted about, oh a millionth of a second. I live in Calgary, Alberta Canada and for any/all of your piercing needs I have to say Rick Gilmour at Adorned is the man. So I went down and dropped in on a Saturday. They don't take appointments so everything is a matter of timing. And luckily mine was perfect. I walked in told Tara, his soul mate and other proprietor of the shop, what I wanted done. I read over the waiver in detail and then I signed. It's not that I distrust either of them in the slightest; it's just that I've had a lot of jobs screw me when I signed something before reading the fine print. So it was merely a force of habit. But I digress.
The room where said piercing took place was simple and sterile. A counter, a mirror, various tools of the trade, a couple of posters and a large black bench, bench is actually the wrong word since it is exactly the same type as you'd find in a doctor's office but anyways. After rinsing my mouth out with tea tree oil mouthwash (Yes Rick is a proponent of natural products which I think is rad) I lay on my back on the " bench " and he proceeded to coax me into my best Gene Simmons imitation, sans the blood. After having my tongue clamped, dried and marked we proceeded to the actual piercing. My tongue was held firmly in a clamp and I engaged in some yoga breathing to relief myself of the anticipation. Rick counted back from five and after one pushed the needle through and deftly inserted the jewelry. I felt absolutely no pain whatsoever except for a very slight burning when the jewelry was inserted.
After getting up I went to the front paid for the piercing and for a bottle of tea tree oil mouthwash for rinsing. Because hey, if your going to rinse with Listerine you might as well use vodka. After heading home and having no swelling whatsoever I took up my mother's offer to go for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. This was both good and bad. Good because pasta is soft, and you won't notice just how much you use your tongue to eat until after it's pierced, and bad because your tongue is more sensitive than normal after the piercing. So I couldn't eat my salad due to the vinegar content but I could eat my pasta, after it had cooled down a bit of course. And, let me stress this, when you get your tongue pierced do not, absolutely not, bite down on it. Ever hit your funny bone? Hard? Yeah it's like that. Not fun.
Post dinner I attended a local all-ages punk rock show. This was actually ok except for the rule that you're supposed to avoid talking a lot in the first couple of days. And well, I broke that rule. Other than dry-mouth nothing bad really happened. And I still got to sing along to all of my favorite bands.
Now the day after that was when the swelling started. So for the next two days it was a lot of " wawking ike iss " and eating the softest food possible for the rest of the week. So for the next four days I subsisted entirely on yogurt, sometimes up to three " meals " a day, noodles, lentil, minestrone and vegetable soup, and protein shakes. The protein shakes were simultaneously the best and the worst food. They were good because they filled me up and were cheap. They were bad because whenever my friends say me drinking a can labeled " PROTEIN BLAST!!! " or " PROTEIN EXPLOSION!!! " or " A BLAST OF EXPLOSIVE PROTEIN!!!! " they would make fun of the name, which is understandable because they had such ridiculous names. Cold water and green tea were also part of my diet; I strayed from pop for fear of the sugar promoting infection.
So after two days of speaking " wif aw wisp " and eating soft food for the rest of the week I was healed. The tea tree oil mouthwash worked like a damn both in healing and in preventing infection, since it's been three weeks and I am still infection free. If you are going to get it done by all means go ahead, but first stock up on soup, pasta, noodles, yogurt and tea tree oil mouthwash. And if you get your tongue (or anything else for that matter) pierced in Calgary, go see Rick at Adorned.