Oral Piercings is a popular trend you see all over. Many people, from many walks of life have piercings in their face outside of just their ears. Moving either further south from the nose, is the lips and tongue. Though oral piercings dates back to the times of ancient Mayans, and Aztecs (done either for ritualistic reasons, honoring gods, or to inflict pain), it seems as if it’s a common concept one does now to enhance their image. Lip and tongue piercings are considered a way for one to express individuality, but can come with many risks. Perhaps the excitement of doing something cool and artistic to your face outweighs understanding the dangers you are possibly posing to your body.
The preferred placement of a piercing varies according to culture and trends and the “hot spot” can change with the times.Here are some current trends:
Regular Lip Piercing: A ring through your lip; pretty straightforward.
Labret: For rock n roll types.
The Monroe/Crawford: For girls who want that special beauty mark to sparkle.
The Dimple: Rumor is that this piercing can create dimples if you don’t already have them.
The Medusa: Warning: By obtaining this piercing, you will not be able to turn men to stone.
Tongue piercing: A.K.A. the Tooth Chipper
Tongue Webbing: Never seen this in real life, but I haven’t been looking under too many tongues.
And lord only know what the heck this is: besides insane.
Although any piercing can become infected, ones in the mouth and tongue are much more prone to it. The hot and moist regions of the mouth and tongue are breeding grounds for bacteria where a hole in the skin can cause bacteria to spread through your blood, into your brain, causing serious problems and or death.
Chipped teeth are another common complication resulting from piercings to the lip and especially tongue. Usually a tongue is pierced with a barbell type ring to plug the hole. Whether you’re aware or not, this barbell is always chipping away at your teeth. Every activity you do from talking, chewing, eating and sleeping work away at fracturing your teeth. These fractures may be confined to just the enamel of your teeth, resulting in having to get fillings. They can go even deeper in the tooth resulting in more work, such as root canals, crowns, or possibly extractions. I personally had this problem when I had my tongue pierced. After the swelling went down, it’s very hard not to play with in your mouth. After a while, I noticed several small chips in my teeth. Most of them were not big enough to notice unless you looked very closely, but I could feel them with my tongue and would play with them and make them worse! I also got a larger chip on one of my front teeth that you could notice without a close up. I soon got fed up with the destruction and took the ring out. If you have a perfect smile and you value it, do NOT get a tongue ring!
Lip piercings may also cause problems. That cute little ball that sits on the end of the barbell can actually wear away at the gum around your tooth causing receding gums. When the gum tissue aggressively recedes around your teeth, it can cause reduction of the bone structure that supports your teeth ultimately leading to painful and expensive periodontal procedures.
Just because you have an oral piercing, does not mean you will have one of these problems, but you place yourself at greater risk for them. When considering getting your lip or tongue pierced, remember you are significantly increasing your chance of dental health problems. Make an appointment with your dentist first. They will most likely tell you having healthy teeth and gums is cooler than the piercings. And remember, this ritual was done in ancient times to inflict pain!