I, like many other, have the problem of having something known as... a job. A job is a burden to anybody who is pierced. It seems that all the easy to get jobs are very wary of most piercings. I am lucky that the job that I have is not too terribly bad.
At A Glance Author Trent Irwin Contact twirwin@earthlink.net When A month ago Artist Chrissy Schull Studio Evolution Body Piercing Location Albuquerque, New Mexico In terms of visible piercings, they only allow one hole in each ear and no visible facial piercings. They also don't allow tongue piercings but they haven't said anything to me about mine which I am happy about. I would hate to take my barbell out. I also had my eyebrow pierced until a few days ago. I was able to wear a retainer to keep it semi hidden, but changing between the CBR and the retainer was too harsh on my eyebrow. It got very swollen and I was forced to remove the jewelry and let it close up. This saddened me tremendously.
For a long time now I've wanted to get my lip or labret pierced very badly, but those are not something work would take too kindly too. I wanted to get something pierced and it didn't matter much what it was that I got so long as it was above the neck. I thought about it for a while but could not think of anything that would be invisible that I would want to get. So thus began my search through the archives of BME.
I went through the picture section hoping something would catch my eye. And then BAM, I entered the septum section. It was then that I remembered that there was a girl in one of my classes who got her septum pierced with a retainer. It was so invisible I didn't have the slightest clue she got it pierced until she told me about it. At the time I didn't think much of it, but in current search for an invisible piercing, it was the perfect solution. I then went to the experience part of the septum section and began reading some stories of others who got their septum pierced. I wanted to find out about the pain factor. The pain in the stories varied. Some stories stated much pain while others talked about hardly any pain at all. I didn't know what to think. I went to bed that night a little uneasy about what I was thinking about doing the next day.
When I awoke the next morning I was still a little shaky about the day?s proposed event. So I got on BME again and read some more stories. I was still seeing very different opinions of pain in the stories. After reading a couple more stories, I said to myself, "Fuck the pain. After all how bad could it be." I did my morning routine, ya know, take a shower, eat breakfast, etc, and headed to my favorite place to get pierced, Evolution Body Piercing. I had my earlobes and eyebrow pierced there and was very happy with the job that was done. I went up to the person who pierced my ears and said that I was interested in getting my septum pierced with a retainer. She asked if I wanted it pierced with a 10, 12, or 14 gauge. I decided that a 14 would be too small and that it would hurt too much getting pierced with a 10, so I went with the moderate 12.
I expressed my nervousness to her, but she eased my worries. She said that people who say that their septum hurt a lot got it done wrong. She said that when done right the experience would be almost painless. She explained how the autoclave process worked and then I waited. I strolled around the place in nervousness, had a couple of cups of water, and anxiously awaited the retainer to be sterilized. Finally, after a few minutes, the time had come. I would soon have a new piercing.
We walked into the piercing room and she started setting up. While cleaning my septum she talked about aftercare, ya know, the usual. After cleaning and marking the tip of my nose, she had me lay down backwards on the place where I would normally have sat. Although this seemed strange I was glad for the chance to lay down and be more relaxed. But her reasons were that she could see better in my nose and there would be less of a chance of it being crooked. So I laid and she lined up the receiving tube and got ready for insertion of the needle. She told me to take deep breaths, so I did. I took a deep breath in, slowly let it out, and the needle went in. Then the tears started flowing. I wasn't crying but my eyes were watering like crazy. She put the retainer in, said it looked very straight, and had me take a look at it. I thought it looked great. She flipped up the retainer and it was invisible.
I paid, left with great satisfaction, and sat down with my parents to watch the Super Bowl. Like I had planned, they didn't suspect a thing. Unless you were looking very closely up my nose, the retainer could not be seen at all. The world would never know I got my septum pierced. Well, until I told it or put visible jewelry in :).
It has been almost three weeks and it is healing very nicely. I just can?t wait till it has healed completely so I can show off my lovely septum to the world.