Quote:
Originally posted by Amanda Lewis
I just got my tongue pierced, and my tongue is absolutely humungus. It hurts too, help!
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Eat crushed ice, let it dissolve in your mouth. Drink lots of water. Rinse your mouth out with warm salt water -- put just enough sea salt (also known as kosher salt) in warm water to make it barely taste salty, and then swish it around in your mouth. Avoid listerine and harsh mouthwashes -- they kill the new scar tissue growing around the barbell.
Also, as soon as the swelling goes down, go back to your piercer and get a shorter barbell -- when people talk about chipping their teeth with their tongue jewelry, it's because they were lazy assholes and never got the shorter bar to put in. The length varies, but both beads on either end of the bar should be barely touching your tongue, on top and bottom. If the bottom ball rubs against your teeth, get it swapped out for an acrylic bead. If that doesn't help, the placement is fucked and you might as well take it out.
And for god's sake, don't fuck around with all the cutie-pie beads and shit they sell for co-eds with pierced tongues. They look stupid, and they tie you down to keeping your piercing at 14ga, which is pretty fucking wimpy. As you talk and play with the piercing, it'll stretch naturally, and it will feel a whole lot more comfortable with a 12 gauge or larger bar in it, I promise you.
Last piece of advice -- if you're going to be changing the barbell yourself and taking it out to clean it once it's healed, get a box of latex gloves. The gloves let you get a better grip on the beads, and then tighten them up again when you put the barbell back in. I've only swallowed one bead off my barbell in a year and a half, and it was because my piercer didn't screw it down tight enough.