Tongue Piercing:

Third of my piercings was a tongue pierce. The piercing itself was probably the least painful of those I have had, this is largely due to the nature of the pierce: The tongue has very few pain receptors inside it and those on the surface are very efficiently deadened by the anaesthetic. Also, because the tongue is a muscle, it has a fibrous composition; when the tongue is squeezed in the forceps many of the muscle fibres move aside and needle tends to slip between them, this results in relatively little damage being caused. Even knowing this, I booked three weeks off work for this one - I'm glad I did:

The morning after the piercing my tongue had swollen to perhaps twice it's normal thickness, this was expected, and the bar that had been put in was longer than required to allow the tongue to swell without pinching it. My tongue was very sensitive and though the piercing itself was not painful, speaking and eating was very uncomfortable for at least another 48 hours. For about a week I felt like I had a mouth full of marbles, and only during the second week did I notice any of the swelling go down. By the end of the third week, my tongue was restored to it's normal size so I changed for a shorter bar, changing the bar made all the difference, my tongue felt vaguely normal again.

Tongue Pierce

Overall, it is definitely my favourite piercing, I would recommend it (well, to some people), but I also feel obliged to warn of those first two or three weeks, I was not a happy camper during this period.

Every so often, the piercing used to become a little tender - The discomfort seemed to be caused by a slight swelling arround the bar. I found a gargle with Hydrogen Peroxide (Caution: read the bottle carefully, this is strong stuff) would within half an hour reduce the pressure, and all would be normal for another couple of weeks. I had a brainwave (or lapse of judgement ?) as to the cause of the swelling: The bar that passes through the tongue is just 1.6mm in diameter, so the impact it has on the sides of the piercing as the bar moves is quite high. By increasing the gauge of the jewellery inserted, the area of contact between the bar and the tongue can be increased, this, I concluded, would decrease the effect of this 'bar slap'. This diagram shows the range of jewellery I have gone through to date. The piercing is currently at 4mm.

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