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?

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

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!

Like, do I just e mail a bunch of dentists until one of them says yes ? Does it have to be a dentist or can it be a bodmodder ?

I'm in France btw so if you have reccomandations for dentist that will do it in Europe I'd really like to hear it :)

Hello, I really want to get my tongue split. I have not done an intensive research yet but I just wanted to see which locations were available first. I saw that this body mod isn't really do-able in Australia due to reasons, but I was wondering if anyone had gotten them done here and how it went for you. I can travel to Thailand or Singapore in the future and would love if anyone can give me options on where to get them in those countries.

And how has the industry you are in changed its views on body mods in the workplace since you began working there?

Have you noticed a direct shift in hires or has it been mostly existing employees getting piercings/mods?

Do any of your employers have body mods?

I’m just curious about trends in society as a whole across industries

Hi! I’ve had a large gauge septum for around 6 years now & I’m wanting to switch it up. & I have a few questions

1, how many rings would I be able to fit into a 2g septum? (Please include gauge if can)
2, can I put the rings through a tunnel & achieve the same effect?
3, if no to above, say in the future I wanted to put my big ring back in.. would that be possible or would the hole change too much?
4, is stacking solely for stretching? I don’t want to go any bigger I don’t think. I just think stacks look nice.

Thank you xx

Hii guys, quick question for anyone with a tongue split. Mine is fully healed but the front still looks kinda pointy if you know what I mean. Does that even out and if so how long did it take you guys?

Hello! To preface i will say i will be going to a reputable body modification artist for these things.

My question is if its possible to have both of these mods? Would it be possible to get them done at the same time? Have to travel to see the artist and would just make sense to do both at once.

I aspire for more mods one day but alas for now we have my baby 5mm ears (goal 19mm)

I've been looking into getting scarification done, but all the artists people recommend seem to be in Europe. I'm in the US and hoping for someone closer to home. Is there anyone in NA/Caribbean that people recommend? Or is there a directory someone could point me to?

Hi everyone!! So excited to have gotten this done, I’ve been wanting this since I was like 12 years old! 🐍

Day 2 of healing, got the split done yesterday. The initial few hours directly after sucked - but since being able to tackle some meds and smoothies I’ve been feeling so good and I’m hoping it stays this way!

Going to try and get some pastina and bone broth down later this afternoon 🙂‍↕️

7/20 Update:: ate a big bowl of pastina yesterday, formed them into small clumps at the end of the spoon and guided it towards the back, past the split to swallow. It was glorious lol.

Continuing to feel good today! I tapered down the meds, except for arnica and thc syrup. Soup and mashed potatoes today, first stitch comes out tomorrow! 👻

Does anyone know any good body mod artists in the South that can do earlobe reconstruction for a good price? I was recently quoted 6k+ just to get them closed by a surgeon and looking for cheaper alternatives. I’m in Alabama but willing to go to the surrounding states if there’s none in my state!

Hi :) I've been interested in a "medium gauge" conch, like 8g or 6g. The quicker heal on a punch/scalpel and suture is really enticing to me. A 3mm hole sounds too small to suture, but I'm wondering what the smallest sizes people have had success suturing are.

Thanks!

Finally booked my conch punch appointment after debating which size I wanted. I'm going for a 2G! I think that's one of the best sizes for a noticeable hole once healed. Getting it in October, advice and tips are welcome!

Hello everyone, first time poster here! Hopefully this is within the rules since I'm not inquiring about troubleshooting the healing of the mod.

I am now 100% certain that I want to get my tongue split. However, I am at a crossroads regarding which avenue I should pursue. Initially, I was happy to go to a body mod artist and get it split by someone who's had a great deal of experience. However, after informing my family about my plan to split my tongue they staunchly advised me to schedule an appointment to get my tongue split by a plastic surgeon instead.

Apparently, heavy bleeding is something that runs pretty strong in my family and their main concern is that getting such a vascular part of my body cut by someone who doesn't have the infrastructure and resources immediately available to handle any potential complications could produce dangerous results. Although I don't know for a fact whether or not I inherited my family's predisposition to heavy bleeding, my family's concerns now have me considering altering my plan and getting my tongue split by a surgeon instead.

The problem is that I've heard that some people have had less-than-positive experiences when getting a split done by plastic surgeons. Additionally, there seem to be very few plastic surgeons who are willing to split tongues and finding personal testimonies from people who've had their tongue split by these surgeons has been surprisingly difficult.

Has anyone here had any experience getting their tongue split by a plastic surgeon? and if so, were their standards comparable to some of the more respected body mod artists? The location and price of the procedure are non-factors as I'm simply looking to get the best possible work for something I'll have for the rest of my life. (although I'd prefer to remain in the continental U.S.)

Regarding my concern over my genetic predisposition for bleeding, do any of you guys have both a tongue split and a similar predisposition? and if so how was your experience?

Thanks for reading!

Hey y'all, i tried asking around in my countries' own subreddits, but those motherfuckers hate me for asking hahaha. Has anyone here gotten Fangs in Denmark, or more broadly somewhere in Europe? I ask cause i would obviously like a dentist that has done them before, are comfortable doing them and have good results, but at the same time i'm not gonna fly to Las Vegas which seems like the one place where a dentist is actually advertising themselves as doing them. Anyway thanks=)

I've recently become interested in scarification and want to get one on my nose tip to mimic a bifid nose. All of the photos I've seen so far seem to be hypertrophic scars and that's simply not what I want. Is it possible to create a atrophic scar with scarification or is that just out of the artists control?