Pros and cons of tongue piercing — How to pierce the tongue

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

Tongue piercing: pros and cons

There is noth­ing new in plac­ing orna­ments on the tongue. It was prac­ticed even in ancient times for a sym­bol­ic or reli­gious pur­pose.

Today, tongue pierc­ings are used to make an impres­sion on oth­ers, to express one’s indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, orig­i­nal­i­ty, and to diver­si­fy one’s image. It is dif­fi­cult to judge its attrac­tive­ness — there are both sup­port­ers and staunch oppo­nents.

Among the advan­tages of pierc­ings and tongue pierc­ings, many peo­ple men­tion vivid sen­sa­tions dur­ing kiss­ing and sex.

Thanks to new tech­nolo­gies, the pro­ce­dure is rel­a­tive­ly pain­less. One or two ener­getic move­ments — that’s it. You no longer need to stick your tongue between pota­to slices at home or apply 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 claim that a cor­rect­ly installed ear­ring of the right size should not harm the teeth. But they do not deny that such an orna­ment can cause or aggra­vate already exist­ing prob­lems with the gums. 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 tongue pierc­ings are turn­ing to them with numer­ous dam­age to the tooth enam­el (espe­cial­ly upper and low­er incisors) and rapid­ly pro­gress­ing gum reces­sion (expo­sure of tooth roots). These are dif­fi­cult to treat dis­eases of the oral cav­i­ty that require large finan­cial costs.

The con­se­quences of a tongue pierc­ing are very dan­ger­ous for peo­ple with hemo­phil­ia and oth­er blood clot­ting dis­or­ders — 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 met­als that are part of jew­el­ry alloys.

Ear piercing in the tongue: side effects and consequences

• Chips and cracks on the teeth — con­tact of the tooth 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 prone to caries, dis­eases and infec­tions;

• infec­tions — the human oral cav­i­ty is home to mil­lions of bac­te­ria and microbes. After pierc­ing, they have direct access to blood. The risk increas­es if you often touch the ear­ring with your fin­gers;

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

• pro­longed bleed­ing that is dif­fi­cult to stop — a blood ves­sel may be punc­tured when the tongue is pierced;

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

• endo­cardi­tis — pierc­ing facil­i­tates the entry of bac­te­ria in the mouth into the blood­stream and heart.

When wear­ing an ear­ring 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 to pierce the tongue

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

Pierc­ing requires del­i­ca­cy, pre­ci­sion, great expe­ri­ence and man­u­al labor. It con­sists in pierc­ing the marked place with the thick­ness of a nee­dle from the leg of a thorn (it is a sharp ele­ment), and then cor­rect­ly plac­ing an ear­ring in it.

Before pierc­ing the tongue, first dis­in­fect the skin around the pierc­ing site, mark the injec­tion site and, hold­ing the tongue with tweez­ers, pierce it.

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

After a tongue pierc­ing, the pierc­ing 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, you need to be very care­ful when insert­ing an ear­ring there. Dur­ing the first week after the pro­ce­dure, you can­not con­sume alco­hol, caf­feine, sug­ar, dairy prod­ucts, and prod­ucts con­tain­ing salt.

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

The area around the ear­ring is very dif­fi­cult to clean. As a result, food residues may remain there, which can lead to the devel­op­ment of infec­tion, espe­cial­ly in a wound after a recent oper­a­tion. First, you need to thor­ough­ly clean the area of ​​the ear­ring (remove it and clean the pierc­ing site with a spe­cial brush with soft bris­tles). Antibac­te­r­i­al mouth­wash or saline should be used reg­u­lar­ly. Sage or chamomile rins­es 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 options of tongue ear­rings of dif­fer­ent sizes and col­ors on the mar­ket. You can buy them your­self. Their appear­ance depends on the loca­tion of the punc­ture.

A bar­bell is the most com­mon dec­o­ra­tion for a ver­ti­cal pierc­ing. It fits per­fect­ly and quick­ly takes root in the wound. But seg­men­tal and spher­i­cal rings, bananas, horse­shoes, and spi­rals are also used.

Half rings with a tip bead are used for side pierc­ings and bri­dles.

An ear­ring that is too long or hooked can cause prob­lems with the health of the oral cav­i­ty. 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 should be smooth.

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

After the pierc­ing is 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 with­in Ukraine.