I've done all but 2 piercings myself. I now have 18 all together. Like most, I started with my ears. After that, my belly button and my tongue. 5 years ago, when I first did my tongue, it didn't hurt or bleed at all. It barely even swelled.
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When I was about 1, I bit all the way through my tongue. The scar across my tongue was located in the exact right spot to do a tongue piercing. So, I put the barbell through the scar which is why I felt safe about doing it myself. About two years after getting my tongue pierced, the barbell ended up getting caught on something and getting ripped. I let it heal but the hole in my tongue stayed quite larger than a 14 gauge. I was able to leave two tongue rings in my tongue without any pain or swelling at all.
Now being as that I have large gauges in my ears, I knew that gauging my tongue would probably a little bit painful. However, I decided that having a gauged tongue would set my tongue a little different than every other person who has a tongue ring. About a year ago, I decided to put a larger gauge in my tongue. I estimated my tongue to be gauged at about an 8. I bought an 8 gauge barbell and tried to put it in when I got home. It was a little big and I didn't want to shove it through so I decided to go out and get a 10 gauge the next day.
When I got the 10 gauge home, I immediately wanted to put it in. Of course, it slipped right in. I had no pain or soreness and minimal swelling. I realized that it was kind of a waste not to use the 8 gauge so I decided that after my tongue healed that I would push the 8 gauge through.
After about 2 months, I put the 8 gauge through. By this time, the barbell slipped through fairly easily. I had a little bit more swelling and soreness than the last time but nothing horrible. Of course after going to an 8, I decided I wanted to go bigger but I decided that I would go no bigger than a 00 gauge. Although, I figured the biggest I would get is a 0.
Over the course of the next year, I slowly got my tongue up to a 2 gauge. My 2 has been in for about 8 months now. I bought a 0 gauge about 4 months ago and tried to slip it in. Of course, no luck as a 0 is much bigger than a 2. For the past 4 months, I've been trying to stretch my tongue little by little by pulling on my 2 gauge and playing with it often. But still, I could not get that 0 in.
My teeth have been starting to chip because I have a metal barbell so I decided the easiest and most efficient way of gauging my tongue would be to get a 0 guage silicone tunnel. So about 2 weeks ago, I bought one. Originally, i was going to buy a two but I decided it'd be a waste (yet again) to not use my 0 gauge barbell. I ended up buying a white silicone double-flared 0 gauge tunnel.
I remember the intense soreness and pain and swelling when I had put my two gauge barbell it. I also knew that putting a 0 gauge in was probably going to hurt as much, if not more, than that. I wasn't too worried about it, but being as that it had been 8 months since I had last gauge, my memory was a little fuzzy of the actual pain of gauging.
I popped the 0 gauge silicone tunnel in and as soon as it was un-squished, I was in almost unbearable pain. I had spit gushing out of my mouth. I wasn't too worried as I knew my barbell made that happen sometime when it hit my salivitory glands. But I decided to leave it in since I wanted to have a 0 gauge. I went to work about an hour later and by the time I started work, I sounded like a duck with a lisp. By the end of 4 hours, I could barely talk at all.
I took some ibuprofen as soon as I got home and the swelling went down slightly. Then next day, I avoided talking and eating. I was popping ibuprofen like it was candy. 2 every 4 hours continuously until the night before last. I woke up at 4 in the morning with my tongue so swollen that I couldn't even close my mouth. I could barely move my tongue. I took more ibuprofen and tried to go back to sleep.
I got up at 8 the next morning. After getting ready for work, I realized that I needed to take the gauge out. It was leaking a pus-blood like substance that was about the color of my tongue and even after taking ibuprofen it was still so swollen I couldn't close my mouth. Also, my tongue was so swollen that the gauge was cutting into my tongue both on the top and on the bottom.
I didn't want to lose the last year of work so I wanted to put the 2 gauge back in. I first started pulling and pushing on the silicone tunnel. It wouldn't budge. I tried tweazers and I tried bending the tunnel on one side and it would not pull through. I ended up having to use scissors to cut off the tunnel on one side of the gauge. I cut the top since it was easy to see. I cut as close the the gauge as I could get but seeing as that my tongue was amazingly swollen, the closest I could get was about a millimeter away on all sides.
After cutting as much off as I could, I started pushing on the top with my 2 gauge tongue ring and pulling from the bottom. Pulling the gauge through was the most painful experience I've ever had with a piercing. I gritted my teeth (not literally, obviously) and pulled as hard as I could. When I finally got it pulled through, my tongue was dripping with blood. I stood over the sink with my tongue dripping for about 5 minutes before the bleeding finally stopped.
Now that I have the 2 gauge back in there, my tongue is still swollen but not nearly to the extreme it was. It feels much better now that I have my old tongue ring back in it. I think I've realized that I'm okay with wasting 1 tongue ring and a tunnel. I think I'm just going to buy a silicone 2 gauge tongue ring and put it in after my tongue finishes healing. My tongue is still unique as a two and I'd rather be able to eat than have a 0 gauge tongue ring.