This is not the first time that I mess up with my septum and it isn't the first time that I share the details here. Previous experiences in septum piercing and stretching have been chronicled and submitted before, in some sort of virtual septum-diary that you should feel free to check out for more and different info about this beautiful mod.
At A Glance Author strawberry Contact strawberry@bme.anon IAM strawberry When It just happened Artist Myself To cut a long story short(ish) I re-opened my old septum piercing last fall. I wore 14 ga jewelry for a while, then got bored and went up to 12 ga, then 10 ga .. You know how it goes, one day you're perfectly happy with your size, the next you have the urge to get bigger and bigger. And so on. Everything went relatively smoothly during my stretching sessions and apart from some pain and discomfort, I've never had anything that a good old salty water soak could not cure. But I like living dangerously and needed to get into trouble. To be honest, every time I stretched my septum I thought things were too easy: it never was a walk in the park, but neither major torture. This has been the case until I decided to go from 6 ga to 4 ga.
Now, it has to be said, and possibly repeated, that I weren't as good as I should have been this time, but that will teach me (and whoever else who wants to follow my steps) a lesson I will hardly forget.
One fine day, when I was all alone at the piercing studio where I work and the boss was away for business, I decided that 6 ga was really too small and that I needed to go up to 4 ga. I didn't rationally think about it, it just felt natural to do so. I have always liked big septums and, besides, with no appointments for the whole morning, I had little else to do apart from reading and dusting. So, what the hell, why not, I said to myself. I locked myself in, went to the piercing room, got my gloves, my vaseline, taper and 4 ga tunnel all ready in front of me. Everything from the taper to the tunnel had been pre-packed and was, at least at that stage, sterile. I could start. I oiled the taper with some vaseline, put it in and pushed it gently. It felt hard and stingy, but nothing horrible, no worse than any of the previous stretching, let's say.
I was very happy that only after about one minute of pushing the taper was in, but what I didn't know was that trouble was only about to start. Holding the taper with one hand, I got the tunnel with the other and gently tried to put it in, side to side with the edge of the taper. It would have probably been wiser to stretch with a taper that's slightly bigger than the jewelry I want to insert, but it was not really one of those mornings to be rational about things. So I did the nasty thing to do and kept pushing the tunnel in.
After about 5 insuccessful attempts to push the tunnel in, and after re-inserting the taper for 5 times, my septum was really sore. So sore that it started bleeding, which has never happened before. It was not a river of blood, but I still had big fat drops of it going down my lips and chin -not a good look- and still I didn't stop. At one point I went and rang my boss to check is she was planning to pop in in the morning to help me and she, needless to say, was not even in town so couldn't come to my rescue until the late afternoon or, possibly, the following day. But with taper still through my nose and blood all over, I really couldn't wait that long.
Determined not to lose the stretching, I went back to the piercing room, removed my gloves and pushed the tunnel in as hard as I could until it eventually went through. It was very painful and it kept bleeding for a while, but I thought I'd be done with it for good.
I didn't close the tunnel immediately: the idea of messing with my septum any further was certainly not appealing and for some reason I seem to find it difficult to put o rings in and, besides, the area was very swollen and irritated.
I put the o rings in later that evening because I was scared I'd lost the tunnel during the night, and it was still very painful. I should have really listened to the signals my septum had been giving me the whole day long: I'd been having a big fat headache that started on the top of my nose and went up to my forehead, the septum itself was very tender and painful to touch, but I thought it was normal (even though, like the bleeding, it had not happened during my other stretchings). After all 4 ga was big and there was a lot of cartilage etc .. the same excuses to pretend I would be fine.
I went to bed that night after having nursed my sore septum with an antibiotic spray, and still thought it would all be over in the morning. Of course, it didn't. I woke up with a big, fat septum, covered in crusties and blood, and it was so painful to touch it that it took all my courage to remove the o ring to clean it properly. As soon as I took the o ring off, pus came out from the hole, with more blood (nice) and I realized that it was probably infected. I tried to drain it properly, removing the other o ring and cleaning it as well as I could with antibiotic spray and then some cream.
I had the afternoon off and decided to go see a friend of mine who's a doctor, just in case. She's a good friend and she's pierced, too, so she's not your typical doctor shouting abuse at you because you violated your body so horribly. By the time I'd got to her surgery, my septum had not improved at all. It was still painful and there was still pus and blood. On top of that my glands below my jaw were swollen, too, which was a clear sign of infection. Simona, my doctor friend, agreed that it was infected and precribed me some oral antibiotics, which I took without complaining.
Two days on, it's doing a lot better. The antibiotics are working wonderfully and my nose has got back to its original size. It's still tender and a bit crusty, but the infection is under control. Oh, and the 4 ga tunnel is awsome, and I'm very much in love with it.
It is one of my favourite mods ever and it's a mixture of powerful, cute and different and I'm proud I have got there, even if it cost me more than planned, at least health-wise.
To everyone who wants to stretch their septum (but I guess this works for other stretching, too): do it slowly, one step at a time, and keep it all very, very clean. I discussed it with the doctor, and it was probably some contamination during the tapering that brought the infection in. Now, I'm a junior piercer and like to do my own mods, but don't be as stupid as I was: have someone to help you, if you don't think you can do it yourself, or at least do it yourself but have someone who can help just in case. Things would have probably been differently if I had someone help me put the tunnel in at the first attempt.
I will never get tired of repeating that if you feel something is seriously wrong with a piercing or other mod, you should contact your doctor as well as your piercing. My infection was far from being fatal, but it's never nice to risk more trouble just because we're lazy and can't be bothered to see a doctor.
Happy stretching and take care. If you have any question, feel free to email or IM me and I will be glad to answer it. And remember, hygene before anything else, always, ever.