Emergency Dental Work: Topics, Tricks and Tips

Posted on: 12 July 2019

Whilst a tongue piercing can look interesting, it can also affect your oral health. If you have just had this piercing done, here are two dental care tips that you might find useful.

Visit your dentist immediately if your tongue starts to swell or if it feels very sore after the healing period

Whilst it is normal for the tongue to swell and feel tender for a few days after a piercing has been placed in it (as the wound caused by the piercing process is still healing during this period), these symptoms should subside after a week or so. If after this period, your tongue becomes swollen again (to the point where your speech changes or where you are finding it hard to eat) or feels extremely sore, then you should not attempt to treat these symptoms yourself but should instead go straight to your dentist.

In this situation, there is a good chance that your symptoms are being caused by an infection. If this is the case, it will need to be treated quickly to prevent any further swelling of the tongue (as if it gets very large, you may struggle to take in enough air, in which case you could then be at risk of suffocation) and to ensure that the bacteria at the original site of the infection do not travel into any nearby teeth and cause abscesses.

The dentist will need to clean up the inflamed tissue with antiseptic dental products and then give you a prescription for antibiotics, which will fight off the bacteria that caused the infection.

Make a conscious effort not to play with the piercing 

You may find yourself getting into the habit of playing with this new piercing; you might, for example, absentmindedly tap it against the back of your upper and lower front teeth, trail it along your gum line or even touch it with your fingers.

If you have noticed yourself doing these things, it is essential to make a conscious effort to stop. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that some of these movements may cause dental problems. For example, repeatedly tapping a metal tongue piercing against your teeth could eventually damage the enamel on these teeth, which could then increase the risk of them decaying or becoming infected.

Likewise, trailing the tongue piercing along your gums may scratch and irritate them. The lacerations and irritation caused by this habit may, in turn, not only make your gums sore but might increase their susceptibility to infections. Last but not least, touching the piercing with your hands could transfer bacteria from your fingertips onto the piercing, which could lead to the piercing site becoming infected and you then having to undergo the above-mentioned treatment at your dentist's clinic.