I'm a 25 year old female from Montreal, Quebec (Canada) and this experience is about my latest addition: double nostril piercings (one on each side with simple nostril screws). First a little background. I had my first "real" piercing, meaning not the standard lobe piercing at the mall, when I was 18. Since then I had around 12 piercing done. Not a lot of them ended up successfully healing, which my current piercer and I were finally able to pin down to this: I am very sensitive to nickel and even the highest grade of stainless steel provokes a reaction. If I wear steel as initial jewelry in a new piercing, the hole will heal to about 80 % and then stall and give me trouble until I get tired and remove the jewelry to let it heal.
At A Glance Author karine Contact k.labelle@videotron.ca IAM karine When It just happened Artist Pierre Studio Black Sun Studio Location Montreal, Qc With this in mind, when I approached my piercer with the project of getting double piercings of my nostrils, we had to special order titanium nostril screws for me to wear. I was very disappointed that they didn't have the jewelry in stock when I went there after Christmas, hoping to get pierced on that very day. Instead, the order was placed and I was told it would take 2 to 3 weeks to arrive. And so I waited.
Finally, on January 19th I called the studio to make an appointment for a friend who wanted to get pierced on January 23rd, when her sister would be visiting. I was told my jewelry had been mailed on the 12th and would most likely have arrived by the 23rd, and so I made the appointment for us 3 girls. I was very excited.
I took the day off from work, and arranged to meet my friends at noon. We went for lunch together, did a bit of window shopping and made our way to the studio. It was the first time both my friends were seeing the studio (Black Sun, in Montreal) and they were very impressed by what they saw. The studio is welcoming, and at the same time has that feel of a doctor's office; clean, professional and orderly. Fanny at the reception gave us our release forms and aftercare sheets and we sat in the waiting room.
It wasn't long before Pierre, our piercer, came to see us. We talked a bit and it was time to decide on jewelry for all 3 of us. Since this is about my experience, I'll skip what happened with both my friends and their piercing, but will just say that they loved their experience. My jewelry was already chosen (titanium, natural high polish, 20ga with 2.5mm beads), all that was left to do was for Pierre to gather every tool he would need to do my procedures; needles, jewelry, gauze, pliers and run it in their Statim. He performed my friends piercing while my setup was being sterilized. And then it was my turn.
I sat in the chair and Pierre looked at my nose from just about every angle. He cleaned my nose inside and out, cheeks and upper lip. As he said, he was bound to touch my cheek of face around my nose while doing the piercing so it was better to clean it to be safe. He then marked my left nostril with a tooth pick dipped in ink to mark the placement and had me approve it in the mirror. I was happy with his choice, and he went on to mark the left nostril. It took him a lot of time, looking at me from the top, then straight on, then from the bottom, they straight on again to be sure they were symmetrical. In the end, he was satisfied with the placement, he had me approve it once again, which I did.
He then proceeded to measure the thickness of my nostril so he could bend the nostril screw to be the exact appropriate length to fit my nose. Once the jewelry was ready, it was time to pierce.
The right side was first. He inserted a receiving tube in my nostril, got the needle ready on the other side and asked me to take a deep breath, then a second and he pierced on the exhale of that second deep breath. The sensation was that of a very strong pinching. I also had that urge to sneeze like I get when my nose gets knocked or bumped, but good thing is that I didn't sneeze. My right eye watered very slightly. The jewelry was inserted, and my nostril was packed with gauze to absorb any blood that there could be. Pierre asked me if I wanted to wait a few minutes before doing the second piercing, but I was feeling fine and so we proceeded to do it.
Same procedure, receiving tube, 2 deep breaths and the needle goes in on the second exhale. OUCH. The second one hurt a lot more. My left eye filled up with tears so I had to close it tight. It also bled more. The jewelry went it, the gauze was placed in my nostril and Pierre cleaned the blood. It quickly stopped bleeding and I was left with a nose stuffed with gauze for about 3-4 minutes. I felt very silly like this and didn't even want to look at myself in the mirror. When he was sure the bleeding had stopped, Pierre removed the gauze from my nose and cleaned me up. Then, I looked at myself in the mirror.
Oh so pretty! I was so in love with my new nose, I couldn't stop smiling. Pierre was also very happy with his work. My friend told me it looked like they belonged there, as if I always had nostril piercings, which made me very happy. I left the studio with a big happy grin on my face and came home.
It's now 36 hours after the procedure and my nose feels great. It might still be a bit swollen but nothing abnormal, and it is slowly going down. I keep forgetting they are there and want to scratch my nose, and they I remember and take my hand away from my face. I am able to blow my nose with no problem, just have to go slowly. My aftercare consists of cleaning twice a day with gauze pads soaked with Baxedin. So far all is going great and I couldn't be happier. I can't wait to see how the rest of my healing goes.