Lucky for me, I found some painkillers in the car, so I took two immediately. In an hour or so the pain dulled down a bit, bit it never completely went away, it still burned. I went to the pub and spent a miserable hour not talking to anyone or drinking anything. It was definitely the most painful day yet. And I was hungry.

Day 4, Tuesday:  Back to work after the bank holiday, I made sure I took a bottle of water, some diluted mouthwash, a tin of soup, a jar of baby food and a yoghurt with me. When I woke up my tongue felt painful and fat but I didn’t have time to worry about it before I went to work.

At work there was another girl who’d had her tongue pierced the day before me. When I looked at hers it seemed very healthy, nice and pink and not swollen at all. Fortunately though, for me anyway, she said that it had been swollen and sore but it had gone down that morning, so I allowed myself to hope that mine might be the same the next day.

My tongue hurt all day at work, it was a constant stinging pain, and in the afternoon I had to go out to buy more painkillers. The thing that was worrying me the most though was that all the tissue around the hole had gone hard, and there was a raised layer of hard white skin on one side of it. It was like the hard skin that people get on thier feet. When I got home I trawled the internet again, but I couldn’t find anything about this hard skin I had on my tongue. I was beginning to get quite frightened. Was it scar tissue? Was it going to stay like that forever? Would I ever be able to eat again? I tried to brush it off, but to no avail. I mouthwashed, salt-watered, tried to pick it off, and nothing. I didn’t know what to do, except wait until I saw my piercer and ask him what on Earth was wrong with my tongue!

For the next instalment, go to this page:

http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Bodyart/My-Tongue-Piercing-Diary-The-Healing-Process-Days-5-19.719707