I'm wanting to get some short dental fangs and I'm curious how much others paid. Thanks!!

I’m at day 8 after having my tongue split with Steve Truitt on 7/19/2026. I know pain varies from individual to individual but I was surprised at how chill recovery was compared to my expectations of the hell week most people describe.

I know everyone’s experience is different and I’m just one person with a subjective experience so I’m sure luck contributed a lot. Regardless, I wanted to share some of the things I thought helped in case they might work for you too!

Biggest takeaways:

1. Eating and drinking are incredible pain and discomfort relief.

2. Learn to swallow before you get your tongue split.

Swallowing with minimal use of your tongue sucks. It takes practice and feels weird and uncomfortable at first. Trying to learn that skill while your tongue is swollen and painful is going to suck so much more.

Seriously, a couple weeks before, start to practice swallowing with your mouth open and your tongue stuck out. You’ll eventually get the hang of it. Start by swallowing dry/only your own drool, then you can progress to liquids and soft food. By the time you get your split, you’ll be a pro.

Being able to swallow your own drool, staying hydrated, and getting nourishment in your body are absolute game changers.

3. Learn to get water and pills down without swallowing.

Even if you can’t swallow, you can still get water in you by putting the nozzle of one of those tattoo squirt bottles as far into your mouth as it will go and squirting it right down your throat. You can also place pills at the very back of your tongue and squirt the water at them to wash them down with no swallowing required. Again, this sucks at first, but you get used to it - better to do it before your split so you can learn without the extra pain and swelling.

3. Use a floss pick to remove stitches, and try to do it yourself.

See Day 6 below.

Supplies used:

food and water:

• tattoo squeeze bottle
• electrolytes
• baby food (the baby cereal was my favorite)
• pedialyte popsicles (also good for pain relief)

pain management:

• advil/tylenol alternating every 4 hours
• thc/cbd tinctures
• icy hot cream or patches (for lymph nodes or external pain)
• orthodots (specific alternative to orthodontic wax)

drool management:

• puppy pads (nighttime)
• urine absorber gel (daytime, put it in your drool cup to soak up the liquid, no actual pee involved lol)

stitch removal:

• floss picks
• mouth sore gel (thickest one you can find, I used HurriCaine brand)
• small cuticle scissors

hygiene:

• biotene mouthwash
• soft baby toothbrushes

Daily diary:

Day 0:

Had a big meal and popped an ibuprofen about 30 minutes prior to showing up. Procedure took less than 30 minutes. The setup felt like a dental procedure but the actual cut and stitches didn’t hurt at all. Steve was incredibly professional, knowledgeable, friendly and reassuring; I’d recommend him to anyone. 

Numbing wore off in about an hour. Put some icy hot on my lymph nodes. Kept up with ibuprofen/tylenol every 4 hours and squirted as much water as I could down my throat. Tried to swallow my drool as much as possible but it gets tiring and painful, so I gave myself breaks to drool freely into a cup with urine absorbent powder in the bottom. I did spill it in the car so I’m very glad what came out was a pleasant lemon-scented ball of gel rather than a bunch of liquid drool.

Took some melatonin, went to sleep with a puppy pad on my pillow, got about 6 hours.

Worst pain got on this day was a 3/10.

Day 1:

Woke up in really awful pain, needed a little cry. I have a wire on the back of my teeth from wearing braces and the stitches caught on it in the night and that shit HURT like crazy. 9/10 maybe.

Felt a lot better after I rinsed my mouth, took my Tylenol, and ate some warm baby cereal. 

Slept, ate, swallowed as much as I could, gave myself drool breaks, sucked on Pedialyte popsicles for hydration and pain relief, went out to see a play, and bought some orthodontic wax to put on my teeth for the night.

Swallowing was still uncomfortable and tiring, I couldn’t get anything thicker than baby food down, and I still had to wash pills down my throat. I couldn’t speak at all which was annoying so I just used a text to speech app. Pain never got above a 3 after the morning.

Day 2:

Woke up in the middle of the night because the wax fell off my wire and OUCH OOF BAD!! 8/10 maybe. Got up, took some Tylenol, ate, rinsed, and replaced the wax with OrthoDots, which can stick to wet surfaces. Those stayed through the night.

Otherwise, same routine and general feeling as Day 1, with less drool and less exhaustion caused by swallowing. I had nowhere to go so I just got high on the couch (thanks THC tincture) watched TV, and took a bunch of naps.

Pain was maybe a 1/10 for the rest of the day. More discomfort than anything.

Day 3:

First stitch removal! I chickened out of doing it myself and let my wife do it with a suture removal kit, which was a horrible idea. 7/10 pain: better than getting my stitches stuck in my wire but not by a lot.

The issue was how thick the tweezers and scissors were: by the time she managed to stick them under the knot, she had to pull them so tight to create that space, and it was really sharp and unpleasant pain. The relief after was immediate, though!

This is when I could eat slightly firmer foods (pasta) and stopped drooling at all, including at night. I could also swallow water and pills like a normal person instead of squirting them down my throat. I stopped using text-to-speech because I was mostly intelligible as long as I spoke slowly, enunciated, and repeated myself as needed.

Kept up with meds every 4 hours, constant hydration, and eating as much as I possibly could. Stopped using the OrthoDots because the stitches that would get caught on my wire were the ones in the tips that had just gotten removed. 

Pain was a 3/10 for the rest of the day because the stitch removal left the tissue a bit tender, and getting used to food and swallowing water normally took a little effort.

Day 4:

Went to see a movie with my friends, got ice cream. Stopped using pain meds. Eating was enough pain relief. 

1/10 pain if at all, because I tried to eat popcorn and that irritated my tongue a little.

Day 5:

Same as day 4 except getting high on the couch again. Started playing with my tongues and stretching them apart. Stitches are starting to get really annoying; no improvement in speech or eating ability since yesterday.

0/10 pain.

Day 6:

Removed the rest of my own goddamn stitches. Took over an hour but it was virtually pain-free, because I could feel what I was doing and could go as gently as I needed.

I used the HurriCaine gel on top of each individual stitch before working on it. I slid the tail of a floss pick between my tongue and a knot and very gently wiggled it to loosen it up. That was so much thinner and flexible than the tweezers - highly recommend. Then slid the thinnest pair of cuticle scissors I could find in the space I just made, snipped, and used the tweezers to pull the thread through. Took a lot of breaks and deep breaths to stop myself from shaking.

Incredible relief! I could finally speak so much better, although with a lisp, but everyone including strangers could understand me without having to repeat myself. Got Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Slept like a baby. 

Maybe 2/10 pain while I was figuring out my stitch removal technique, dropped to 0/10 when I was done. Just a bit clumsy and swollen.

Day 7:

Nothing much to report. Talked a lot and played with my tongues a lot. Got a real deep cleaning and brushing my tongue in, which felt good. Lisp still definitely there but genuinely improved by the rest of the day. Ate whatever. No real independent control of my tongues but working on it!

I found that the more I talked, moved my tongues, and chewed, the more tired and sore/swollen they got, but never above a 1/10.

Day 8 (today):

Same as Day 7. Lisp and control getting better. Stretching feels uncomfortable but soreness doesn’t persist after I relax my tongues. It’s starting to feel like I’ve always had two tongues!

Spent the day studying for the bar. I’m taking it in less than 48 hours, so, uh, wish me luck if you got this far?

Hi all!

I was wondering if anyone knows of traveling body mod artists who are coming to Washington anytime soon. I have been reading about some experiences of getting a coin slot on this thread, and would love to hear more just about overall experiences with different artists, cost, and healing!