To risk it or not?

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Thursday July 10th, 2008 @ 6:34 AM

Filed under: Tongue

Hello,

I went to a piercing parlour today wanting to get my tongue pierced. I went in and the guy had a look at it and told me that I can’t because of an atery and that he can pierce it in a slanted way or risk doing it. The worst he said was that my tongue MAY have this really huge keloid on the tongue and there will be alot of bleeding after I get it done. Now, I’m fine with bleeding. I actually wanted to become a medical examiner so that type of stuff doesn’t scare me. What bothers me is the “may or may not” part. I said I still want it because he wasn’t 100% sure that would happen but he didn’t want to risk it and he didn’t want to deal with alot of blood. Do you think it’s okay to get a tongue piercing even though there’s an artery in the way? Can I still do it slanted? Or should I just forget about the whole thing?

Thank You,

Athena

Firstly, I deeply doubt it is an artery. More likely a vein running down the centre which is relatively common. Veins are visible as blue vessels because they carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart. If hit it will cause a bleed-out which is messy and time consuming for the piercer and can cause marked, instantaneous swelling. Also, any movement in the bar can cause it to bleed again. The healing time will also be lengthened because the body has the additional issue of having to control the bleed before it can progress onto the next stage of the healing process. Piercing it at a slight angle will avoid hitting the vessel but it can cause hypertrophic (raised) scarring due to more pressure being put on one side of the piercing. I would accept that this piercing is not for you and opt for something else, afterall, what’s the point in having a piercing if you cannot have it done perfectly.

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