I saw my first septum piercing performed on my best friend about six years ago, and was instantlly turned off septum piercings. It wasn't that the piercing looked painful, which it did, it was the placement. My friend's piercing barelly hung from the skin under his septum, and at the time I thought that was just how the piercing was done.
At A Glance Author eviladam Contact eviladam@bme.anon IAM eviladam When A week ago Artist Didn't catch his name Studio Mantis Tattoo and Body Piercing Location Clarksville Tn Thank goodness as the years went on I learned more about the craft of piercing. After a fair bit of research on everything from BME to an instructional video from Pleasurable Piercings I learned of the "sweet spot", the ideal place for the piercing, and I also learned that it's difficult to get straight.
Now having all ready seen the disaster that was my friend's septum I opted not to have the piercing done in my home town. With that the quest was on to find a piercer I trusted with my face.
Because I live in the narrow western part of Kentucky Indiana and Tennessee are eqaul distance from my house, and because I knew where more shops were located in Indiana I headed north. Several hours later I returned unpierced. Visits to every shop on either side of the state line had turned up no positive results. Ranging from a shop that didn't do facail piercings, to a piercer who was under the impresion that a septum is a genital piercing. I'm sorry, but if you don't know where it is I'm not letting you pierce it.
The following day I headed for Tennesee in hopes of accomplishing what ought to be the simple matter of getting a piece of metal installed in my nose. I was looking for a certain shop recomended to me by a friend, but I have no sense of direction, and ended up pulling into the first shop I came too. Mantis Tattoo and Body Piercing.
There were several people waiting at the counter but I was quicklly waited on by the piercer, who's name I unfortunantlly never got. I told him I wanted a septum piercing, but needed to be able to hide it at work, and we discussed jewellry. Ideally I wanted a retainer or a niobium horseshoe, but niether were available. I was assured that a cbr with no bead could be flipped up and would stay in place.
With that settelled I asked to see a portfolio, which the piercer didn't have. Apparentlly he misplaced it and all he had was his tattoo portfolio. At this point I was a little desperate and he managed to convince me that he knew what he was talking about, so I went for it.
I was left to wait in the lobby while the piercer sat up, and then called back to the booth. I was seated in a chair and instructed to look up, and he marked my nose with a sharpie. As far as I know my nose was never cleaned, unless I didn't notice it. I've been told by others that this is normal, and that it is not. I don't know for sure.
"Deep breath in," the piercer said then he pushed the needle through my septum, and into what I believe to have been a recieving tube. The pain was immediate, but not as bad as I expected, and my eyes watered. The biggest challenge was not to sneeze while I still had a needle in my face. The ring was slid into the piercing and I experienced only minor discomfort. At this point I was basically shown the door with no mention of after care procedures what so ever, just a recomendation to come back and have my piercing stretched.
I very nearlly wrecked admiring my nose in the rear view mirror on the way home. The piercing looked fantastic, and as far as I could tell was perfectlly straight. I was disapointed to learn that it wouldn't hang down for the first few days however, so I flipped the ring up into my nose and only took it down to clean it. After two days I was a little concerned that it still wouldn't hang down, but I checked around and discovered that too was normal. The biggest problem came with the head cold I got soon after ward, as I discovered blowing my nose with a septum piercng ws uncomfortable as well as messy.
I started cleaning the ring with dial anti bacterial hand soap and then soaking my nose in a warm sea salt solution at least twice a day, and my piercing responded well. The puffy irritated look wsa gone by the next day.
Since then I've had the ring fall out once while I was blowing my nose. I had to use a mirror to locate the hole, but my cbr slid nack in with no pain. And latelly I've started getting crusties on the ring, which I saw none of for the first week. But all in all the healing is going well and I could not be happier with the end result.