@Andy the goth-hey there
i heard a lot of scre stories before i had my tongue pierced.had been considering it for a while but was put off by the mainstream popularity of it when some spice girl or other had it done.
but after a few years,i went ahead and had it done.
id head that your tongue swells up to scarey proportions shortly after making anything but drinking/eating without the use of a straw impossible.
id heard you shouldnt smoke or drink alcohol,kiss etc etc for weeks after having it done.
i cant confirm these to be advised practise,what i can tell you is my own personal experience tho.
i had mine done mid day.wasnt apprehensive,want scared.was curious.
what is done is the piercer uses a set of tongs to grip you tongue(firmly enough to keep it stuck out of your mouth).its not possible to freeze your tongue,dont expect anasthetic with this,so no copping out or cheating
do arm yourself with lots of tissue,because you will drool uncontrolably for the entire duration of tongue in tongs-which could be a few minutes.
its perfectly normal,but is a little embarrasing if you are unprepared.
it doesnt hurt.honest!i was quite suprised at this.had braced myself for sharp pains,but was none.i didnt realsie he had actually done the piercing until he said it was finished.
they should put in a longer sized bar not standard.this is to accomodate swelling so doesnt restrict blood flo in your tongue...so yeah theres swelling
took about 2 weeks for things to be abck to pretty much normal for me,but have heard of 10days,to a month of swelling.so it must be an individual thing.take lots of viatmin c and b(apparently they help the healing processess).
i was told by the piercer to buy some mouthwash,none alocoholic mouthwash(since most of the standar stuff does contain it believe it or not);and to gargle every time i drank or ate anything at all-including water.
make sure you have plenty of mouthwash.
as for the dont drink,kiss or smoke thing....well maybe thats advised practise but i lit a cigarette up as soon as i got out of the piercing studio,went out to local alternative club that very night,and kissed most of my friends whilst i was there since they were all curious as to what it would be like.
the swelling didnt truely come up until late in the evening and by then i was inebriated anyway and didnt care too much.but the weeks after it was a pain in the ass.i lost weight because it was difficult to eat,and sometimes too much hassle so just didnt bother...so maybe inbvesting in lots of soup and plastic straws wuld be a good idea too.
oh-it will afect your speach for a while too.
but,altho at several points i did ask myself thru swollen tongeness was this really worth it,it was.the swelling went down,i had minty fresh breath all of the time(bonus!),it looked very cool,i swapped the longer bar for the standard one so fit in the mouth better.
one thing which was an annoyance after getting it done was that the tongue bar would unscrew and come loose.dont know if youve seen them,they look like tiny bar bell(a small ball on either end of thin metal bar),and the "ball" which screwed and unscrewed(to allow for changing/cleaning etc)would come loose.
one time i accidentally swallowed the little ball.no major harm done,but didnt have a spare,so went without for 12hrs till could get to shop and buy another.this meant the hole had all but closed up.andDONT TRY THIS AT HOME EVER ANYONE!!!,i re-pierced it myself by pushing the bar thru what was left of the first hole in my tongue.
so make sure you have a spare in the vicinity at all times.
you can get some fantastic jewelry now,from flshing/uv tongue bars to ones with little icons on too.at one point i had whats called a satelite in,which is a standar tongue bar but had replaced the plain srew in ball with one which had ying yang on it and four smaller balls going round the bigger screw in bit.
unfortunately i had to take all of mine out when was pregnant with twins,simply because of the higher risks for possible surgical intervention and the fact all of them would have had to have been taken out before would do surgery.and obviously in an emergency situation messing about with your tongue bar when so much is at stake is stupid.also had to remive navel one because stomache was expanding to such an extent the piercing wa sbeing stretched so much that it would reach "critical"strech-ness and split.not that a man would ever have that problem
hope thats been of some help...
not too sure about all that lot.still illegal to practise here i think.may be wrong tho.... 
