We’ve all seen the pictures of crazy piercings on social media, ones that look absolutely wild and you never thought would be possible to do to a human body. Well, you were right, and they are not meant to be done to the human body. Today we are going to review some of the more dangerous and absurd piercings that have made the rounds of the internet and why you shouldn’t attempt to get one of these for yourself.
“Snake Eyes”/Off-Center Tongue Piercings/Any Horizontal Tongue Piercing
Your tongue is composed of two muscles, not one. If you stick a barbell through the tongue horizontally, you are binding those muscles together. This can affect your ability to talk. Your tongue also has large veins in it, running lengthwise, which are a perfect target for an off-center piercing. Hitting one of these is a recipe for serious disaster. These piercings can also affect nerves in your tongue and carry a far greater likelihood of damaging your teeth.
Mandible Piercing
Do we really have to discuss this one? Putting a piercing through the bottom of your jaw is an inherently bad idea. There are veins, there are salivary glands, and also your jaw is very thick. You would need an extremely large barbell and that would come with an incredibly long healing time, assuming you can find a piercer willing to do this in the first place. This looked cool in the picture, it is NOT meant for real life. Please just don’t. Let it go. The risk of damaging your jawbone is very real and very scary. Infections happen and they happen to bones so don’t risk your jawbone to look like some picture from Instagram.
Dermals Over Joints (Ring Finger Piercing)
If you aren’t super savvy on dermals, let’s start by explaining that these are “long term temporary” piercings. That means that in the vast majority of people who get dermals (anywhere on the body) they eventually will reject. The finger is an especially poor choice for a dermal due to the amount of movement in the area, the thinness of the skin, and the amount of stuff your hands come into contact with on any given day. These will almost one hundred percent certainly reject, and they beg for a nasty infection. They can also impair your ability to use the finger you chose for them.
Uvula Piercing
This is a great way to stimulate your gag reflex every waking moment of the day. It’s also a huge choking risk should one of the ends of your jewelry come loose or your jewelry actually fall out and you’re going to have a hard time explaining that to the emergency room doctors if you make it to one. They also carry a major risk for throat infections, which you definitely do not want.
Achilles Piercing
It doesn’t even matter as much what the risks are after you get the piercing because the risk involved in getting this pierced is insanely high. If your Achilles tendon is injured, you could wind up with a permanent limp or other mobility issues. Not only that, but any infection can also spread to the tendon or bone causing serious health problems both immediately and down the line. Furthermore, this would take an insane amount of time to heal and finally, any piercer who is willing to do this to you is not a piercer you should go anywhere near.
Subclavicle
This one goes under your collarbone. That already sounds unsafe. There are major blood vessels in that region and hitting one is going to be a medical emergency. Any infection has a direct route to your head or into your chest and the amount of movement from your shoulder virtually guarantees migration or rejection anyway. Please don’t.
Safety is so vital when it comes to body modification. That doesn’t just include things like aftercare or making sure your piercer wears gloves. It also includes making sure that the actual piercing you are getting is safe for the human body. Just because you found a piercer willing to perform that crazy social media piercing for you doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea or that you should get it. Many of these pictures are just piercings just done for the photo and then removed, and many are either faked or experiments done just to see if they can be done. Don’t be someone’s experiment. Keep yourself safe and your piercings safe for you.
Happy piercing.
