This might be just a little obvious but when you first get a tongue barbell your tongue swells up and you are basically reduced to liquids and hospital food. This only last for the first little while when the swelling is going down, approximately 2 weeks. Afterwards you can pretty much eat whatever you want. Also you should avoid things like oral sex,kissing and alcohol.

By hospital food I mean soft squishy and cold or cool foods. Jello, pudding, bananas, marshmallows, ice cream, watermelon.

You do not want to eat things like chips or nuts, seeds or anything that could get stuck in the hole because this could cause infection and prolong the swelling. Basically use common sense and you should end up with a nice barbell in the end. Be careful though it is easy to chip your teeth especially if you've had extensive dental work in the past.

--------------------------
I think that I should give credit for this node to Kryptica! She didn't start noding until awhile after this node was created but she helped me out with node ideas when I first started. She's the coolest and is the one with the tongue piercing. :)

Heh. I just wish someone had told me this when I got my own personal tongue pierced. I went out the next day to a Mexican restaurant and ate something with chicken and tortilla chips. Even after washing out the piercing immediately afterwards with water, glyoxide, and antiseptic mouthwash, my tongue still got infected. Which was too bad, because I really enjoyed having the piercing. It was fun to play with. It was also useful because I was working tech support for an agency of the Department of Defense at that time, so if someone asked me stupid questions (a daily occurence) I'd give them a half-second flash of the end of the barbell. That tended to really squick DoD types.

For the record, the infection culminated in a fairly bad fever about six weeks after I got the piercing done. I finally gave in and took the barbell out. My tongue healed in a matter of hours and my fever broke overnight.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.