I was never into piercings and tattoos when I was little. I was completely against the idea of tattoos and body piercings and figured that I would never get any. That was until I got my second lobe piercing when I was thirteen or so. After that I started paying more attention to people I saw around me with tattoos and body piercings. Both of my older siblings had their tongues pierced and I decided when I was fourteen that I wanted my tongue pierced too. Of course, my parents said no. All adults around me told me not to, that it would get infected. However, I was stubborn and insisted that I knew quite a few people with tongue piercings and they were fine. So, I ended up giving up temporarily. I continued on my lobe piercings.
At A Glance Author Sad_and_Sarcastic Contact sarcasticcynic17@yahoo.ca When A week ago Studio Asylum Ink Location Oshawa, Ontario, Canada My sister is a tattoo artist and while she was working at the shop she did her apprenticeship at, my mom took me to visit her. I was nervous about going into a tattoo shop, and to this day, I'm not even sure why. I walked into the shop with my mom and as soon as my sister saw me, she reached under the front desk, pulled out a sheet and started writing on it. I walked over and realized it was a waiver and I immediately started panicking. She filled out my name and address and all of my information and I kept telling her to stop. She wouldn't tell me what it was for. Then she wrote that it was a cartilage piercing and I calmed down quite a bit.
So after I got my cartilage pierced and had a total of four lobe piercings on each ear, I got bored. I knew that I still wanted my tongue pierced and starting seriously considering it. So I asked my sister if she would go with me to go get my tongue pierced and I asked her and her fianc questions about their tongue rings. I also talked to a friend about hers and everyone told me a lot about them. They told me how long their swelling lasted, the pain involved, that I'd talk funny if it swelled. My friend even gave me her aftercare sheet so I could see what I'd have to do. My dad and his girlfriend were okay with it, but I already knew my mom would be the hard one to convince. My sister told me she'd only take me if our mom had said I could do it so I called my mom and asked her and she kept saying she'd think about it. I called everyday for three days and eventually she just got annoyed and said she didn't care and she knew that I wanted it. So I was all set.
So I talked to my sister again and told her we could go get it and we decided on last Friday but ended up changing it to Wednesday which actually was a really bad idea, but I'll get to that. So on Wednesday, my sister called the last shop she worked at, that she still does tattoos for occasionally and got the manager to call in his piercer for 8:00 that evening. So we went out and kept busy all day and I was pretty nervous all day. When we got home we watched a movie to distract me but I kept looking at the clock. So at 7:30 we left to go to the tattoo shop called Asylum Ink. We ended up having to wait for the piercer because she had to drive in and got caught in traffic. The waiting made me pretty tense. I sat in the shop and at 8:30 the girl showed up and asked if we were there for piercings and I told her that I was so she went into the back. She came out a few seconds later and asked who was getting what and I told her I was getting my tongue pierced. She said okay and went into the back again and I saw her filling a cup with what I assume was some sort of mouthwash or something. She called me into the back and my sister asked if she could come too. So the piercer sat me down in the chair, gave me aftercare instructions and handed me the cup with green stuff and told me to swirl it around my mouth. I did what I was told but as soon as I put it in my mouth I realized that she didn't say for how long, so I just did it until she told me to spit it out. She told me to hang on to the cup and put it under my chin because I would most likely drool. From reading stories on here and from people I know, I had figured that drool would be involved. She told me to stick out my tongue and she grabbed it, dried it off and tried to look at the bottom for a vein. Apparently I was having a hard time keeping my tongue out because she kept telling me to stick it out. I didn't know I was pulling it back until my sister said the exact same thing the piercer had: "Stick your tongue out!" So I concentrated really hard on keeping "\w it out and she told me that I had a vein running right through the center so my tongue ring would be slightly off center but I didn't care. She dried it off again and used the marker to mark when the needle would go. I watched her grab the clamp and clamp my tongue which didn't hurt as much as my sister's fianc had led me to believe. Then she grabbed the needle and I watched her as she put it through.
I had been told by many people that it wouldn't hurt. My sister told me that it would hurt less than when I got my cartilage pierced. Not true. I most definitely felt the needle and it hurt something fierce. My eye started watering and I could feel the drool on my chin. I didn't really feel the jewelry go in, but then again I was still in enormous amount of pain from the needle. I know that it sounds ridiculous to be surprised that a needle going through your tongue hurts, but I was quite surprised. I knew it would probably hurt, but I had no idea how much it would hurt. So, the piercer told me to put my tongue back in my mouth and I did and then she put a new CBR in my cartilage and I was done. I got up and my sister told me to go sit down and she grabbed my wallet and went to pay for me. I guess when she worked at shops, people got lightheaded after tongue piercings but I was okay. I paid and thanked the piercer and my sister asked if I got an aftercare sheet and I told her that I'd remember everything.
We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to her house and I got popsicles and sea salt. When we got home I had a Popsicle and was very amused to find that if I licked it, my barbell left a groove in the Popsicle. My sister and her fianc had friends over that called me dumb and asked me if I regretted it, but I never did. In the past week, I have not regretted it the slightest bit.
It hurt the first two days but when I took Tylenol I was fine. I went to a theme park the next day which was a bad idea. I couldn't eat anything there. Even my drink was too hard to handle because of the straw. I had to pour my drink into my water bottle. And after every drink I had to rinse with sea salt and since I didn't feel like finding a bathroom anywhere, I'd just take some of the sea salt water, swirl with it and find a bush or garbage can to spit it out into. I would not suggest going to an amusement park the day after getting a tongue piercing because yelling on rides hurt a bit and having to carry around sea salt water wasn't fun. Trying to find something you can eat easily is difficult too. We went to a restaurant later and I could eat fine, it just took me a long time and I am pretty impatient so it was hard. By the third day I was eating normal food and it didn't hurt. So now a week later, it doesn't hurt at all, unless when I take a bite food gets caught on my barbell between the bead and the top of my tongue and my barbell gets pulled on. Yawning the other day made it a little tender too. But, other than that it's good. I absolutely love my tongue ring. I can't see me ever taking it out. It is inconvenient having to swirl salt water after anything other than water, but I knew I would have to. All of my friends were shocked today when they saw it for the first time. I also would not recommend getting it a week before school starts because I still am talking a little funny. Luckily my swelling went down quite a bit the past two days. Overall, it was a good piercing and the most painful part was getting it done, whereas my cartilage's most painful part was the week after.