At A Glance Author Caroline Contact Caroline@bme.anon When A month ago I guess now would be a good time to start with some background information ; Im sixteen, I have 9 other piercings not including my septum, I spend an unhealthy amount of time on BME and that about sums me up.
So naturally one day after much clicking about and looking at pretty much every piercing imaginable I found the septum piercing page and made up my mind pretty much within the first page that I needed to have this done. It was close to the nose piercing I had wanted for a while but was slightly more original and looked [in my opinion] much more even and balanced. After that I spent most of my time for about a week looking through the photos and desperately trying to find the £25 needed to get the piercing done on the following Saturday. Unfortunately however much nagging & visiting grandparents I did I still didnt have the money and couldnt see any chance of getting the money anytime before September which, being an incredably impatient person I was not willing to wait.
Until one Saturday after meeting some friends in Newcastle and complaining about how much i needed // wanted a septum piercing I got the money. Well I didnt so much get the money as had a friend who was willing to loan me the money for me piercing after I loaned her the money for an eyebrow piercing a few months before hand. So with the generous money loaning friend, my boyfriend and several others who just tagged along at the prospect of seeing me in pain we headed first to the bank and then off to get pierced.
As we turned the corner into the street it suddenly occured to me, I was prepared for the piercing, I finally had the money, I had people with me, I had a place to stay to avoid my parents for a while and the one thing I didnt have ; any form of ID. Luckily for me the piercer who had done two of my previous piercings was working that day and would be doing the piercings, seen as I have piercing obsessed friends and had to go back several times for both piercing cleaner and piercings in general he recognised that he had in fact pierced me before and therefore I wouldnt need ID.
While standing outside with the piercer and the large group of people who seemed to have followed us down to the store I remember that I hadnt ate at all that day and no food + new piercings dont go well together. So after a quick run to find a store and a very quick chocolate bar we were finally ready. Seen as the store only lets two people into the piercing room with you anyway and I didnt particularly want a huge audience, myself, the friend who was paying for the piercing went into the room.
I apologise in advance for not knowing the right terminology for most of the following but I'll do my best to describe it as clearly as possible.
After finally agreeing that the piercing would be done at 1.2mm and a curved barbell would be put straight in I sat on the chair and was told to sit and hold two cotton buds soaked with what I can only assume was something to numb the area at my nose for several minutes. After pulling the chair back into a bed shape and asking me to lie back and tilt my head back slightly we were finally ready to start. Before I got it done I had been told that the septum is the most painful piercing to get and so really was expecting some kind of cartilage ripping agony so when i closed my eyes inhaled and felt the needle go through the skin on the exhale i was quite shocked. Although it does sting and have that kind of 'need to sneeze' feeling for a brief second it certainly didnt hurt anymore than my labret or even tongue when it was being pierced.
After I knew the needle was through I relaxed slightly and started tuning out, which may be the reason I didnt notice that it was taking a long time for the barbell to go through. It took roughly 10 minutes to get the barbell through due to a mixture of what seems to be me having an odd shaped septum, using such small jewellry and possibly a million other things which caused it to take so long.
Having said that it didnt hurt or bleed nearly as much as I was expecting and is certainly much more comfortable to wear than I imagined it would be. Because of the size and shape of the jewelry it is easily flipped up and cannot be seen if it is flipped up. It's now almost three weks since it was pierced and so far seems to be healing well with very little swelling or irritation, so far.