Woman Gets Tongue Split to Relieve Chronic Pain and Improve Sex Life

Amber Lane, a 43-year-old dis­abled woman from Cal­i­for­nia, decid­ed to get her tongue split in order to relieve chron­ic pain from Com­plex Region­al Pain Syn­drome (CRPS) and enhance her sex life.

Amber has suf­fered from CRPS, an excru­ci­at­ing inflam­ma­to­ry con­di­tion, since 2014. The dis­ease has spread through­out her arms and legs, caus­ing severe and per­sis­tent pain that dis­rupts her life. Des­per­ate for relief and con­trol over her body, Amber explored var­i­ous options for alter­na­tive treat­ment. She ulti­mate­ly decid­ed that split­ting her tongue, also known as tongue bifur­ca­tion, could pro­vide ben­e­fits for both pain man­age­ment and sexuality.

“At first I was going to get anoth­er pierc­ing, but I already had one, so I came across a pho­to of a ran­dom per­son with a split tongue and fell in love with it,” Amber told the Dai­ly Star. After con­sult­ing with a body mod­i­fi­ca­tion artist and get­ting approved for the pro­ce­dure, Amber’s tongue was split. “The first split closed a bit, so we wait­ed a year and made a new split when the artist came back to California.”

Since get­ting her tongue split, Amber has expe­ri­enced improved taste, pain relief, and sex­u­al plea­sure. The bifur­ca­tion caus­es her to per­ceive tastes sep­a­rate­ly on each side of the tongue, cre­at­ing an unusu­al but pleas­ant sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly when eat­ing dif­fer­ent foods simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. The pro­ce­dure has also pro­vid­ed relief from her CRPS pain and enhanced inti­ma­cy with her partner.

While reac­tions have been mixed, Amber’s friends and fam­i­ly are most­ly under­stand­ing and curi­ous about her uncon­ven­tion­al choice. “My mom asked if it was for sex­u­al rea­sons and I laughed and said ‘no.’ When I explained it was a way of reliev­ing pain, they under­stood imme­di­ate­ly,” Amber said. “A fam­i­ly mem­ber felt sad for me at first, but after explain­ing, under­stood. Anoth­er said it was creepy but also super cool. Peo­ple either love it or hate it.”

Amber hopes to get more body mod­i­fi­ca­tions in the future, includ­ing ear pierc­ings, but must work around lim­i­ta­tions from her dis­abil­i­ty. For now, she is grate­ful to have found an unex­pect­ed solu­tion to her suf­fer­ing in such an unusu­al place. Her expe­ri­ence proves that think­ing out­side the box and an open mind can lead to life-chang­ing results.