Tongue piercing pros and cons — How to pierce the tongue

Togeth­er with tat­toos, pierc­ing is one of the most pop­u­lar types of body dec­o­ra­tion. More and more peo­ple are choos­ing orig­i­nal ear­rings for pierc­ing dif­fer­ent places, espe­cial­ly the tongue. To learn all about tongue pierc­ing, read this arti­cle care­ful­ly and then make your final deci­sion.

Tongue piercing: pros and cons

Plac­ing jew­el­ry on the tongue is noth­ing new. It has been prac­ticed since ancient times for a sym­bol­ic or reli­gious pur­pose.

Today, what pierc­ing is done on the tongue for is to impress oth­ers, to express one’s indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, orig­i­nal­i­ty, to diver­si­fy one’s image. It is dif­fi­cult to judge its attrac­tive­ness — there are both fans and staunch oppo­nents.

Among the advan­tages of pierc­ing and pierc­ing the tongue, many call vivid sen­sa­tions dur­ing kiss­ing and sex.

Thanks to new tech­nolo­gies, the pro­ce­dure is rel­a­tive­ly pain­less. One or two ener­getic move­ments — and that’s it. No more stick­ing your tongue between slices of pota­toes at home or apply­ing ice from the freez­er to make it less painful.

Now you can not be afraid of the appear­ance of aller­gies after pierc­ing, because most of the jew­el­ry used is made of sur­gi­cal steel or oth­er non-aller­genic met­al alloys. But before decid­ing on a tongue pierc­ing, the pros and cons should be care­ful­ly weighed.

Expe­ri­enced piercers say that a cor­rect­ly set ear­ring of the right size should not dam­age the teeth. But they do not mind that such dec­o­ra­tion can cause or exac­er­bate already exist­ing gum prob­lems. If symp­toms such as red­ness of the gums, vis­i­ble grad­ual open­ing of the teeth, pain and increased sen­si­tiv­i­ty occur, the ear­ring should be removed as soon as pos­si­ble.

Den­tists are sound­ing the alarm: more and more peo­ple with a punc­ture in the tongue turn to them with numer­ous dam­age to the tooth enam­el (espe­cial­ly the upper and low­er incisors) and with rapid­ly pro­gres­sive gum reces­sion (expos­ing the roots of the teeth). These are dif­fi­cult-to-treat dis­eases of the oral cav­i­ty, requir­ing large finan­cial costs.

The con­se­quences after a tongue pierc­ing are very dan­ger­ous for peo­ple with hemo­phil­ia and oth­er bleed­ing dis­or­ders — there is a high risk of bleed­ing that will be dif­fi­cult to stop. Anoth­er impor­tant con­traindi­ca­tion is bac­te­r­i­al skin dis­eases (infec­tion with staphy­lo­coc­cus, strep­to­coc­cus). Dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, these bac­te­ria can enter the blood­stream and infect the entire body. Some peo­ple may have an aller­gic reac­tion to the met­als that make up jew­el­ry alloys.

Tongue piercing: side effects and consequences

• Chips and cracks in the teeth — tooth con­tact with met­al can dam­age enam­el, fill­ings and crowns;

• gum injuries – jew­el­ry can dam­age the soft tis­sues of the gums. The teeth become more exposed, look unat­trac­tive, and the root of the tooth is more sus­cep­ti­ble to caries, dis­ease and infec­tion;

• Infec­tions — The human oral cav­i­ty is home to mil­lions of bac­te­ria and germs. Once pierced, they have direct access to blood. The risk increas­es if you fre­quent­ly touch the ear­ring with your fin­gers;

• pain and swelling — after the oper­a­tion, the tongue will recov­er in a few days. This can­not be avoid­ed. In extreme cas­es, swelling of the tongue and dif­fi­cul­ty in breath­ing may occur;

• pro­longed bleed­ing that is dif­fi­cult to stop — when pierc­ing the tongue, a blood ves­sel can be punc­tured;

• blood-borne dis­eases — accord­ing to the WHO, pierc­ing can be a fac­tor in the trans­mis­sion of hepati­tis B, C, D and G;

• Endo­cardi­tis – A pierc­ing makes it eas­i­er for bac­te­ria in your mouth to enter your blood­stream and heart.

When wear­ing ear­rings on the tongue, you need to pay atten­tion to any changes, inflam­ma­tion, pain (espe­cial­ly teeth). In case of prob­lems, you should imme­di­ate­ly con­sult a doc­tor.

How do tongue piercing

This is one of the most dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous pro­ce­dures. The main dis­ad­van­tages of improp­er inser­tion of a tongue pierc­ing are hem­or­rhage on the tongue or nerve pal­sy. Two large arter­ies and many nerves pass through the tongue.

Punc­ture requires del­i­ca­cy, pre­ci­sion, great expe­ri­ence and man­u­al labor. It con­sists in pierc­ing the des­ig­nat­ed place with a nee­dle as thick as the leg of a spike (this is a point­ed ele­ment), and then cor­rect­ly plac­ing the ear­ring in it.

Before the tongue is pierced, the skin around the pierc­ing site is first dis­in­fect­ed, the injec­tion site is marked and, hold­ing the tongue with tweez­ers, pierce it.

There is a risk of infec­tion trans­mit­ted through unster­il­ized skin pierc­ing instru­ments with body pierc­ings. If strict hygiene rules are not observed in the salon, you can become infect­ed with the hepati­tis B virus and the hepati­tis C virus, HIV or staphy­lo­coc­cus aureus.

After tongue pierc­ing, the punc­ture site may swell in the first days. It heals in about 1–5 weeks. Even if the ear­ring takes root, it is nec­es­sary to con­stant­ly mon­i­tor that it does not dam­age the tooth enam­el.

Since the tongue is a very sen­si­tive place, there­fore, when insert­ing an ear­ring there, you need to be espe­cial­ly care­ful. Dur­ing the first week after the pro­ce­dure, alco­hol, caf­feine, sug­ar, dairy prod­ucts and prod­ucts con­tain­ing salt should not be con­sumed.

Food is rec­om­mend­ed in the form of puree and juice through a straw. This will min­i­mize poten­tial irri­ta­tion. Rinse your mouth with antibac­te­r­i­al liq­uid, chamomile, or sage after eat­ing some­thing. Dur­ing the heal­ing peri­od of the tongue, you should not kiss, as this can cause an infec­tion.

The area around the ear­ring is very dif­fi­cult to clean. As a result, food debris can remain there, which can lead to infec­tion, espe­cial­ly in a wound after a recent oper­a­tion. First you need to thor­ough­ly clean the ear­ring area (remove it and clean the punc­ture site with a spe­cial brush with soft bris­tles). Antibac­te­r­i­al mouth­wash­es or saline should be used reg­u­lar­ly. Gar­gles with sage or chamomile are also suit­able, they have sooth­ing prop­er­ties. With­out these actions, the tongue can quick­ly become infect­ed and swollen.

All about tongue piercing: how to choose an earring

There are many vari­eties of tongue ear­rings in dif­fer­ent sizes and col­ors on the mar­ket. You can buy them your­self. Their appear­ance depends on the punc­ture site.

The bar is the most com­mon dec­o­ra­tion for a ver­ti­cal punc­ture. It fits per­fect­ly and quick­ly takes root in the wound. But they also use seg­men­tal and spher­i­cal rings, bananas, horse­shoes, spi­rals.

For side pierc­ing and frenu­lum, half rings with a bead-tip are used.

An ear­ring that is too long or hooked can cause oral health prob­lems. Its length should be from 16 to 22 mm. If the size is too small, the ear­ring will put a lot of pres­sure on the wound or grow into the skin. Fas­ten­ers must be smooth.

Mas­ters rec­om­mend choos­ing the first ear­ring made of tita­ni­um, sur­gi­cal steel or oth­er bio­com­pat­i­ble met­al. This ensures that it will not be reject­ed by the body, like any oth­er for­eign body. It should not con­tain nick­el, which is a com­mon aller­gen.

After the punc­ture has healed, you can choose a more beau­ti­ful pierc­ing ear­ring made of med­ical gold or sil­ver in the Sil­vers online store and order it with deliv­ery in Ukraine.