At A Glance
Author	Jemma
Contact	Jemma@bme.anon
IAM	NeutronLIAR
When	It just happened
Artist	Myself
Studio	My house
Location	Manchester, UK

Ever since last October I've been feeling pretty bummed that I can't have my tongue pierced centrally. Well, at least I couldn't when it was last checked. My piercer said I have a pretty short tongue, and while the size of it would be okay to pierce, I have a big vein running right across the centre but in a kind of diagonal way. My piercer told me that as I am [or was, this was over a year ago] still young that there is chance the vein could move. He told me he'd been in a similar situation when he was around my age and that he'd had it checked and there was a vein in the way. But then a couple years later the vein had shifted out of the way and he could get it done. He said I should wait a while and the same could happen to me.

Anyway, I started reviewing experiences on here about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and it seems there have been quite a few on tongue webs. Of course I knew about these piercings, but as I'd been told about my tongue, I'd never really bothered about reading up on tongue-related piercings after that. Though after reviewing about 10 tongue web piercing experiences, I suddenly thought to myself today, "I can't get my tongue pierced, but what about the web?" This is where "amature piercer Jemma" switched on and I looked over to the corner of my desk where all my piercing "supplies" are...

I'd just like to state now that I am NOT a professional piercer, this took place at my house with equipment I already had from previous DIY piercings. Although I do want to someday train to be a pro.

Being the impatient bugger I am, I began looking through the BME Wikipedia and BME galleries at pictures for placement ideas and what jewellery would be most suitable. I decided that I was going to pierce my web myself today. I felt pretty confident, as I had pierced my own lobe for a second time, and my navel with proper equipment I bought from the internet. Proper being a piercing needle, latex gloves and Sterets alcohol wipes.

It got to about 10 o'clock tonight, and I decided I wanted to do it. I cleared up my desk and moved everything out of the way and went to the kitchen cupboard to get a new [still in the wrapper, too] roll of kitchen roll. Upstairs I went and I gloved up, folded about 4 sheets of paper up onto the desk and got everything I needed out of my drawers. I have a tin [which is sanitary at least, everything in there is boiled and then cleaned with alcohol wipes before it goes in] full of jewellery and tapers I've "collected" over the 2 1/2 years I've been into piercings. I had a rummage through and chose what I thought would be the best to use, which I found was a 1.6mm titanium curved barbell, which is I think 10mm in length. Just to be on the safe side, I cleaned it with a Sterets wipe and screwed one bead on and left the other off. I took the packaged 1.6mm cannula needle, opened the packet and tipped the needle out onto the kitchen roll, next to the barbell.



I took my gloves off and positioned my mirror to where I could comfortably see under my tongue clearly with enough light. I gloved up again and took the needle out of the plastic cover. I leaned over and looked in the mirror and lifted my tongue up. It was hard to keep my tongue still in a position where my web was "pronounced". I found one point on my web where I though would be a good placement, but my tongue was in jiggly mode and wouldn't stay still, so I ended up poking the web with the needle and bleeding. I took some kitchen roll and put it under my tongue, shut my mouth and held it there for a minute. It stopped bleeding, so I again opened my mouth and inspected my tongue web. After poking around a bit more, I found a good spot and started to push the needle through, going from my right to my left side. From reading so many experiences, I wasn't expecting any pain, so I didn't really bother with the "inhale, exhale, pierce" method my piercer uses on me. And I was right, it didn't hurt at all, it just felt as if someone was pinching my web. It was bearable.

I saw the needle go through, but it didn't want to come out the other side. It just pushed my web to the left, until I used my left thumb and pushed my web to the right. Pop, and the needle poked through. By now, my jaw was beginning to ache, so I quickly took the needle out and left the cannula in. I shut my mouth and swallowed what saliva hadn't dribbled out of my mouth onto the kitchen roll. I looked at it in the mirror and pushed the cannula a little bit further in, so that I could easily insert the barbell, which I picked up and poked the threaded bit in. I gently pulled the cannula out of my tongue web while keeping hold of the barbell so it didn't fall out.

Now for the tricky part.

In the DIY web stories I read, it seemed that threading the bead on was the hardest thing to do in the whole procedure. And boy, are they right. I stupidly shut my mouth and again swallowed my drool and opened my mouth again to find the barbell slipping out. I tried pushing it back in but being where it was, my gloved fingers were slipping all over the place and it fell out. Whoops! I easily pushed it back through though with only slight discomfort. It took me AGES to fit the bead on. I had Faith No More's Angel Dust album playing and I must've gone though about 4 songs before the thread of the bead finally latched onto the thread of the barbell and I tightened it on. Success! Though I later found out I hadn't screwed it on all the way, but that was easily fixed.

I wiped my mouth with tissue as I was drooling all over the place, and took my gloves off. I was done! It was honestly the most painless piercing I've had [besides my navel ones and wrist which were numbed anyway], and the difficulty of threading the bead on definitely makes up for that.



Link to the finished piercing here

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the result, although I think it's pierced a bit too far forward and I know the barbell is a bit too long. It's been about 3 hours now and it's causing me no problems at all. I've ate and brushed my teeth and no pain! I'm gonna finish by saying what I did on my last DIY experience: "there's no point saying "I wouldn't recommend DIY piercing" because for that to happen, I would have to of had a bad result. Plus, like me, people are still going to do it regardless of that people say. One thing I will say though is to use proper needles, jewellery, wear gloves and keep everything as clean as possible. And definitely DON'T bloody use a gun!"