The only thing I’ve ever pierced was my left ear. Controversial enough in the small town where I grew up, it was the late eighties so eventually everyone was doing it. I did let it grow in when people started pointing out that my earlobes were two different sizes. Asymmetry is unattractive after all.

I’ve contemplated at times having my nipples pierced. However, since mine are super sensitive to the point of pain on a cold day, I’m not sure I want to risk losing the feeling by over-stimulation as I would imagine piercing them might do. Why chance impeding my pleasure?

Otherwise, I think an eyebrow ring can be hot, but again, since I have one eye that doesn’t open quite as wide as the other, I’m planning on highlighting yet another facial flaw. A piercing in the genitals, such as a Prince Albert is simply unimaginable to me. I’m too chicken for that.

Nevertheless, in all my piercing dithering, I’ve never feared health-related problems beyond hearing a tongue stud chips teeth. My vanity precludes risking any more damage to my pearly whites than coffee and cigarettes have already done.

However, according to Carla K. Johnson of the AP (10/17/06) in at least one rare case, a pierced tongue led to piercing pain of an unexpected nature. One young girl set off a syndrome known as trigeminal neuralgia, a nerve disorder that caused shooting electrical pain in the face 10 to 20 to 30 seconds at a time, 20 to 30 times a day.

Its nickname is the “suicide disease” for driving folks to the brink. Last Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association carried the report of said afflicted Italian. Since her piercing traveled through her trigeminal nerve, the largest in a person’s head, once removed the pain went away.

The case is an oddity. Choosing to have it done only by a professional in the field, using implant grade metal jewelry and practicing good oral hygiene, should avoid any such complications normally.

Still, I think for now at least, I’ll keep to admiring other people’s holes - err, I mean piercings of course!