h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For most piercings, the choice of the location and type of jewel is really a matter of personal choice and esthetics.
I am myself the happy owner of a pierced nipple.

But as a son and a partner of dentists (it runs in the familly), I have seen several times patients coming in with multiple micro-fractures of their teeth (which appeared to turn very painful after a while) due to a metal bar-bell inserted in their tongue.
It seems to work exactly like a demolition-ball, taking up momentum while you speak and crashing the teeth enamel with every shock...
The longer the bar, the worse it is.

Dentists in the know would either recommend to remove the dear jewel (pity!), or at least propose to replace it with something lighter and not so hard (plastic jewellery, shorted bar, etc).

Yeah, my father's a dentist, and he does bemoan the fact that people with any sort of tongue or mouth/lip piercing are basically messing up their teeth. One ex of mine, who had a tongue stud, had a little circular groove worn into the gap where her upper and lower 1s met, as chewing and fiddling with the bar in her mouth had abraded the corners of her teeth!

Labret studs can also be a pain (literally!) as they can literally take chunks out of your lower gum... Ouch!

I didn't realise that. I'll warn my friend who has one.

Of course, these things won't necessarily happen, and so aren't worth getting too worried about, but having any mouth piercing risks doing damage to your teeth and gums.

She does chomp on it quite a lot. And another friend of mine has a tongue piercing, and two others that go into her mouth.

As long as they can put up with their dentists frowning and tutting, I reckon they'll be fine!

As with any wear and tear, it's all done over a loooong period of time.

Aha, well, sod 'em then.

The cases I am talking about both had had their tongue piercing less than a year (not what I call a "long period of time"). In both cases, the steel barbell was quite long (enough so it could slide up and down through the tongue), and the "demolition-ball" effect had caused micro-fractures in the enamel of the inner side of several teeth, mostly on molars and premolars.

It is the hyper-sensitivity to hot and cold, the pain resulting from micro-fractures, that had sent those two young persons to go and see their dentist, not the dentists' "tutting and frowning"... Although I am sure my Mum tutted and frowned a lot, beng quite conservative, when her patient first opened her mouth to reveal the shining piece of jewelry...

The main danger is that the tongue moves quite a lot, and quite fast, and the "demolition-ball" gets is momentum from that.
Other fix piercing won't present the same danger.

i had my tongue pierced about 6 months ago and yeah, i was told by my dentist to change to a plastic bar, but the thing is, for me anyways, when i have a plastic one, i tend to want to chew it more :S !!

I've also been told that the metal bars can damage your teeth. A friend of mine had a father for a dentist who had seen damange. Of course, with a plastic bar you can't steralise it, but you should always keep one or two around in case you need an xray, or have to go into hospital.

Plastic jewelry can cause irritation.
As long as you don't sit and play with the piercing you should be fine. I know plenty of people who have tongue and lip piercings (including a woman who has had hers for over 15 years) and no one that I know has ever had a problem.