After waiting years to actually go through with it, I finally got my tongue pierced. Just the typical 'right in the middle, towards the back' type deal. I was SO afraid it was going to hurt, but I had wanted it to badly for so long I finally grabbed my best friend and headed to the piercing shop. Details may be sketchy, because it's been about 6 years.
At A Glance Author anonymous When Two years ago I don't recall the woman's name who did it, but she was very nice and very professional. She looked at my tongue, commented that it was very short (???) and then it was cleaned and marked for where it was going to be pierced. She put the clamp on and it was a good amount of pressure. I remember holding my friends hand, eyes closed, expecting this searing pain, when I felt what I can equate to a ball point pen being pushed into the center of the tongue with moderate pressure, and she said "ok, needle's through". I could not believe it, it didn't hurt! I looked in the wall mirror, and it's a little weird to see your tongue with a big needle through it, but it didn't hurt and didn't bleed at all. It felt kind of weird, like there was extra weight on my tongue, and the balls at the end of the barbell felt like I had pills in my mouth that I hadn't swallowed. The bottom ball got hooked on my bottom teeth, when I first tried to talk, and instinct has you pull your tongue back, which doesn't work! I would say there was about 2 days of having to speak carefully to get used to not hitting the barbell into my teeth, and maybe 3 or 4 days of eating soft foods. You have to rinse after eating, and I think I sucked on ice chips and took some advil or something to help with any swelling. All in all, the pain was really minimal, and within 10 days it was like I couldn't imagine not having it. I'd say the most painful part of getting it dome was using the listerine (or whatever it was) to clean my mouth first!!
So years go by, and I start wanting something else. I had gotten my nipples pierced already (that hurt!) but I still wanted something different. The idea of having a double tongue piercing really appealed to me, so after looking at many great photos here on the site, I decided to go through with it. I also liked the idea of hood piercings, so I decided to gather up the courage, and a good friend, and go get both done. (this was about 2 or 3 years ago)We went to the shop I had gone to years ago, but they were closed. I'm a very 'now or never' kind of person, so I knew if I didn't get it that night, I'd probably put it off for a while. We stopped at another shop (I have heard it had a good reputation as well) and the one piercer working was this big, burly tattooed guy. I had a guy do my nipples (again, I wanted a girl to do them, but just wanted them done so i had him do them) but I really didn't think I'd feel comfortable with a guy doing the hood piercing. I figured I'd have him start with my tongue, and if things went well, then I'd ask him to do the hood piercing too. Well, I wasn't so nervous this time, because I knew it didn't hurt badly to have the tongue done, but of course, there always are some nerves to be had! He marked the spot for the second piercing, right behind the first (over the years, the first one had moved forward slightly) and he put the clamps on. Not bad I thought, but then he pulled it out to pierce it and I swear he almost pulled me off the table by my tongue!! the piercing didn't hurt, but the little piece of skin under your tongue did, and it had a little tiny cut on it from him pulling. I was glad to have it done, it looked great, but after that there was NO WAY I was going to ask him to do anything else to me!! The second one was a lot easier to 'recover' from, since I was used to having the first one (as far as talking and eating and all.
Well, fast forward to last fall. I was interviewing for jobs and would take both piercings out of my tongue when I'd go in for interviews. I forgot to put them back in, and the first went in no problem, but the second had already closed up pretty well. This had happened before, and it too about 45 painful minutes to work it back though. I wasn't really in the mood to deal with that, plus the guy I was dating wasn't really into piercings, so I just let it go. Boy, do I regret it. Haha, the guy and I broke up less than a month later, and I missed my second piercing a lot. It's been bugging me more and more lately, and I want it back (same story for my nipple rings, which I also took out... but those hurt a lot more to get done, plus I had trouble getting those to heal) so that leads us to today, when I'm FINALLY going to get around to getting it done again. I really want my tongue done again, the hood piercing and my nipples again, but I'll start with just the tongue (and maybe the hood if I like the piercer!!)
Overall, for the tongue piercings, if you're considering it, GO FOR IT. It really doesn't hurt to have it done, it heals really quickly (If you have a Monday-Friday job, have it done on a Friday night and by Monday you will be able to talk and function normally) and it's really not terribly expensive.
Best of luck!!!