Like most people who choose this particular piercing, or "piercings", I wanted something a little different than your typical center tongue piercing. I had been looking for over a year at horizontal tongue piercings but never would go through with it due to warnings of the obvious restricted tongue movement, plus my own valid worries of dental problems that I could NOT afford. During this research, the receptionist at my piercing studio recommended that I look into venoms. 2 tongue piercings, angled through the muscles of your tongue in a sort of "V" shape that would give the look that I wanted from the horizontal tongue piercing without the same restrictions.
At A Glance Author xCatWomaNx Contact xCatWomaNx@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Azel Studio Soul Survivors Location Winnipeg I went straight to the BME galleries and experiences, and became convinced that I needed that piercing. I called my shop to make an appointment and to my surprise they said that they had a guest piercer in from Montreal named Azel, and asked if it would be okay for him to perform this piercing on me. I trust my shop completely, and if they felt that he was qualified enough to spot as a guest piercer at their highly regarded business, then he would be more than good enough to perform work on me.
One week later on Friday February 20th, 2004 I was sitting in the waiting room at Soul Survivors filling out the forms. I had already met Azel a couple days earlier as I needed a quick check up on an angry nipple piercing, so we weren't complete strangers when I went into the piercing room. At that prior appointment, we discussed how the venoms were to be done, and he said that doing them both in one appointment would be no problem at all and would probably be easier on me since I would only have to go through one healing session. Azel had performed several of these piercings before, and also informed me that the healing of them was significantly more difficult and painful than center tongue piercings. This was fine for me since I'd never experienced a center tongue piercing and so had nothing to compare it to.
At the beginning of the actual appointment we discussed placement. I work in an office building, so I wanted them fairly inconspicuous and placed back as far as they would comfortably be placed. He took his time with the placement making sure that I was both comfortable and happy with how it was going. The first piercing was done; again I didn't find it altogether painful, maybe because I find the clamping process so uncomfortable, or maybe all the people who have worked on me are just that good, I don't know. Having low blood pressure, I did get pretty dizzy. He let me relax and we talked until I was ready to go ahead with the second one. My speech was already somewhat slurred and I could feel my tongue being inflamed. I can't remember all the details for the second one as the first exhausted me a bit, but I honestly can't remember if it hurt more or not. Still, they looked great! Even Azel was impressed saying that these were probably the best-placed venoms he had ever done. I was all smiles. A healthy tip was definitely in order.
Later at home I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed as I had eaten a good meal beforehand, and had quite lost my appetite afterwards. The next morning I tried talking to myself and found that I had incredibly slurred speech, more so than what I was expecting. I had stocked up on instant potatoes, juice and applesauce, so I was good in the food department, but around noon my tongue had started to bleed when I was exercising. I went to the bathroom to spit out the blood and rinse with a bit of water, and noticed that it was kind of squishy chunks of blood. After about 15minutes of this going on, and finding no answer on the Internet to this problem. I simply called my shop and calmly asked them what I should do about a bleeding tongue piercing that didn't really show any end in sight. Jay the receptionist suggested that I apply pressure by folding up a paper towel, sticking it in my mouth and push against it with my tongue. 10 minutes later, it had worked, plain and simple. I think that little piece of advice could help a lot of people with their tongue piercings as I have read endless experiences of people removing them due to massive bleeding. Another piece of advice, have a problem? Call your shop! If they're reputable, they'll have no problem helping you.
Bleeding happened twice more within the next couple of days, and I remedied it with the same paper towel solution. The pain was pretty intense. I do have to admit that I considered removing them the first couple days after it had been done, and I would have too, had they not been placed so far back making it difficult for me to get at the jewellery. By the seventh day I was carefully eating solid food and 2 weeks later my lisp was far less obvious though it didn't go away completely until a month later. I had a jewellery change less than 3 weeks after the piercing by Jason since Azel had returned to Montreal. He too commented on the attractive placement.
Okay, now here is where I fast forward 11 months into the bad part of the story, but please note that after the piercings had healed, I had NO problems whatsoever during these many months. They were truly beautiful and I was proud that they were a part of me. I also made a conscious effort to not cover my mouth when I yawned just as a "subtle" way of showing them off. Even my dentist noted the perfectly fitting jewellery that didn't come into contact with my teeth. He approved.
Starting right after Christmas of 2004, I had a bad cold that 2 weeks later turned into a severe nasal infection, that a week following turned into pneumonia. I couldn't shake it, and also not knowing at the time that my 100yr old apartment was full of mold might have had something to do with it. I slowly recovered from my pneumonia but not having sick leave at work slowed the process I'm sure. I began noticing that I had hard lumps in my tongue right around the left piercing. Each day for 3 days they got bigger and I was getting very worried and exasperated from being so sick for so long. I went to my shop for them to check it out and they had never seen anything like it. Jason applied pressure to the lumps to see if they needed draining. I can't say that I appreciated him at the moment for doing that as it hurt a great deal. I left a little upset since they didn't really have any words of wisdom for me on the subject and told me to keep checking in so they could keep an eye on it. My tongue was in constant pain at this point, worse than the healing process had been. Jason did, however recommend that I go to the walk-in clinic across the street and ask for some antibiotics.
I visited the doctor the next day and he wasn't too impressed, but said that he would prescribe me the antibiotics and noted that the lumps may not completely disappear. Later on that day I noticed that the lump at the top of my tongue right around the piercing looked kind of green. I applied pressure like Jason had the day before and sure enough it started to drain. It felt better immediately since it was the pressure that was causing the discomfort. The fluid was a milky green colour and I had to drain it several times for the next couple of days. My tongue cleared up a couple days after that but I finished my prescription anyways since it's really important that you do that with antibiotics. The lumps vanished completely and my beautiful piercing was back to normal! For now...
Since I didn't know about the mold concealed in all the walls of my apartment, I continued to get sick, and a month and a half later I once again had painful lumps in my tongue. This time it was even more painful than last and the lumps were harder and didn't want to drain. I went to the doctor to get some more antibiotics and promised him that if they got any worse they would be coming out this time around. As encouragement, he said he liked my Monroe piercing and that I didn't need any more. After picking up my prescription I went home to try and rest, though the constant pain made even that difficult. The next day I was at work and was such a wreck that I used some banked time and left early to go to my piercing shop. I arrived there right before 2pm. Jason rushed me into the room, but my tongue was too swollen for me to stick it very far out of my mouth. I had forgotten my wallet that day so Jason lent me 10 bucks to go across the street and pick up some Midol to try and ease the swelling. I took some and then sat in the waiting room, waiting for it to take effect.
An hour later, between clients, Jason showed me into the piercing room again to try and remove the jewellery which he thought may be doing this out of reaction to the jewellery applying too much pressure against the tongue muscles. I can't quite remember though. I could stick my tongue out a bit more, but it required a very big effort out of me to do so since my tongue was not only swollen, but also hard. Jason tried applying clamps to my tongue to position it so that he could even get at the jewellery but couldn't do it himself. He had another one of the guys that worked there come in, put on some gloves and help him with this, but they couldn't since I was in so much pain from the pressure of the clamps on the hard lumps in my tongue that giant tears started rolling down my cheeks. Jason knew that this was bad since I normally have such minimal reaction to piercings getting done. He had hardly heard me yelp before, let alone bawl.
All this had made my tongue swell up a great deal again, so back to the waiting room, more Midol, and Jason kept seeing his steady stream of clients while constantly checking in on me and thinking of another course of action. Unfortunately, my little ordeal had put him extremely behind schedule and he had quite a build-up of clients waiting. He wouldn't get a chance to shove me in the piercing room for another 4 hours. At the end of the day Jason was still behind schedule and the shop was closing. Eric, the shop owner had come in as he did at the end of every day, and they told him about my problem since I could hardly talk.
Right after Jason had finished with his final client, both him and Eric took me into the room. The swelling was down and Eric took a look while Jason watched. I mechanically followed all the instructions he gave me, though I hardly felt like I was awake and doing so. Jason joked with me, "Hey, how come he's not getting any big tears out of you? I was doing the same things!" I was just so exhausted from the pain and not being able to eat that I was just a bit out of it, but thank God, Eric decided that he didn't need to use any clamps! He first removed the piercing that wasn't infected as much and went on to the other one since removing the first one allowed me to move my tongue more freely.
Instantly, I could talk and felt better. I was so grateful that the pain had finally subsided that it took me a week to even miss my piercings. I do plan on eventually getting some center tongue piercings done, as I really don't think it's wise to even try the venoms again. Although I am tempted because I just thought my tongue piercings were the nicest that I had ever seen and miss them more than any other piercing I've had to retire. The only way I would take that risk again would be if I could find out exactly had happened to cause them to flare up so badly.
The moral of the story? Your health affects your piercings, if you love them, you will try your best to take care of yourself. Also, mold sucks.