Written March 30, 2000

This would be my 4th piercing I revieved.
I was 18 at the time, It happened in about november or december of 1998.
A friend of mine, Bill, were hanging out around his house in Toledo, Ohio and we decided we both wanted a piercing. I had wanted to pierce my tonuge for a long time, it was at the beginning stages of the extreme fad of tonuge piercings. I can't explain why I really wanted the piercing, I had seen it on a few people and thought it looked cool. I didn't do much research on the topic, I just dove *head first* into it.
Ok, so Bill and I went to a place called "Otto's" that was in town. We got there and we told the guy what we wanted (Bill decided on a eyebrow piercing. I tried discussing the piercing with him a bit but he wasn't very receptive, that should have been my first clue to get the hell out of there before this guy sticks a needle in my face and fucks me up. But ofcourse I didn't leave... Such begins the end of my "tongue stabbing nightmare". We filled out necessary forms and what not.. and I decided to go first. He didn't have an Listerine, so he had us go get some from the store around the corner and come back - second clue! A piercer that doesn't have the proper equipment to do a specific body piercing shoudl have also scared me off, but my heads a lil hard and I still didn't get the hint that this guy wasn't very experienced. We went to the store, got the Listerine, came back to the shop. He told me to rinse my mouth out with the wash for about 30 seconds, and it woudl also *numb* part of my mouth (I don't EFFIN' think so buddy!). I asked him how many times he'd done a tonuge piercing before, he replied with "ohhh, maybe 7 or so" - Warning sign #3 (ya know I really should have followed the warning signs here!). This guy was SERIOUSLY un-qualified to do this piercing, but still, I went ahead with it anyhow. I know people that have done many many piercings and still won't do the piercing if the master piercer isn't in the same room with them incase something were to go wrong or they needed help. Alrighty, the mouth is rinsed... I sat in the chair, he told me to stick out my tonuge and he grabs them with the forceps, while trying to judge exactly *where* the needle should go. I guess he found the right spot, because he told me to take a few deep breaths.. I started to freak after the second one and told him to stop a second.. so I started all over again.. breath 1, breath 2, and on about breath 3, he stuck me with the needle. Well, it didn't hurt incredibly TOO bad, blood was pouring out of my mouth though and drooling down my shirt *oops*. He put a 14 guage barbell in my tonuge (standard guage and length). And I got up, rinsed my mouth again, and he said I was done... Then it was Bills turn for his piercing - but his went just fine. Only thing - the guy told me to rinse with Listerine after EVERY time I smoked, ate, and drank. He was really wrong for telling me that, all that rinsing drys up the moisture in your mouth (because it contains alcohol). This guy didn't even tell me that I was supposed to DILUTE the mouthwash! Another reason you don't rinse after everything you do is because your mouth is trying to heal and you are rinsing away and killing many of the agents that are trying to heal your tonuge *cells and stuff*

Well, we decided we were hungry after we got that done. It was odd though, my tonuge felt really HUGE and awkward sitting in my mouth. The metal felt strange too, like it was alot bigger than it actually was. We decided to go to Arbys. That wasn't a good idea, I had to tear off pieced of my roast beef and shove them into the corner of my mouth, I couldn't bite it because my tonuge would move, get in the way and hurt. As for eatting, I ate very soft food for days, mac & cheese, mashed tatos.. you name it, it was soft, I ate it.
So this went on for about a week... the swelling went down, but it still hurt alot. I waited another week.. it still hurt, I thought this was supposed to be normal, the guy said that it would hurt for a while. So a month past, it didn't hurt near as bad, but had its moments where it would twinge of pain. I could stick it out of my mouth and play with it and the whole bit. Sometimes it'd just hurt out of no where though. Another month went by with the same episodes, still hurting on and off.. it wasn't because I was playing with it either, it would hurt out of no where still. By the third month of it still hurting I was beginning to get concerned. I got a new job talking on the phone ALL day, by the end of the first day, my tonuge had swelled to twice its size, the size it was when I first got it done. I let it rest for the evening. I went to work the next morning, it still hurt just a bit, but I began my shift. About 45 minutes into it, my tonuge was in so much pain I had to take the barbell out. It didn't come out of my tongue very easily, like my tonuge was trying to kepe it in, almost sucking it. wierd! I got it out and went to the bathroom, and it was bleeding. Under my tonuge was a little nub sticking out. When I touched it, part of my tongue would go numb, like I could feel a line in my tonuge that wouldn't work. Turns out when the piercer did my tonuge, he guessed wrong on the location and pushed a nerve through the bottom of my tonuge. That is why it would never heal properly, no matter how much or little I did with my tonuge, the nerve wouldn't heal because it was severed in half, with one end stucking out the bottom of my tonuge. To this day, the little nub sticks out the bottom of my tonuge. It isn't nearly as bad as it was when I first took it out, I think its healed alot since then. I can still touch it and part of my tonuge goes numb, but like I said, not nearly as bad as it had been. I've looked into plastic surgeons and ear, nose, and throat doctors and none of them can cut it off or anything. I've tried to cut it off with an exacto razor, that didn't get to far, because it hurt to bad to do that I found out.
So that is the end of my tongue stabbing story. I probably won't ever get my tonuge done again. I've entertained the thought every so often - ofcourse I do, when I see all the kids coming into the piercing shop with their fad. Maybe one day, after its not so *cool* to have it done, I might... The master piercer that I work with right now has had his in for 6 years and he's very good at what he does, I might get it done with him, I just don't want to go through the pain for 2 weeks like I've seen alot of people go through in the past few years.