I had been thinking about getting a nostril piercing for a while because every time I saw someone with one, I would think about how cute it looked and how much I wanted one. However, I am a big baby with little to no tolerance for pain and a big fear of needles, so the process of going from wanting the piercing to actually growing the balls to go get it was a long one.
At A Glance Author Glitterhips Contact Glitterhips@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Mr. Lee Studio Rising Phoenix Location Addison, Illinois After thinking about it for a while, I finally decided I wanted to get it. My best friend and I decided we would go the Saturday after Thanksgiving after work. I stayed up very late the night before reading everything I could find about nostril piercings, and when I did finally get to bed I was barely able to sleep because I kept tossing and turning thinking about letting some stranger poke a hole in my face. I kept thinking about it all day at work, but as the day went on, the friend I was going to go with and I both had bad shifts and were both in terrible moods. I didn't want to be in a bad mood when I got my piercing done because I knew that would probably make the experience a lot worse, so we decided to postpone it to another day.
The next day we're both at work again, and it's really slow, so my manager tells us we can both go home at around 1 in the afternoon...so we immediately looked at each other and decided that we were going to go get my nose pierced right then, so we got in the car and drove to the piercing place.
I was pretty calm on the car ride over, but the minute we pulled into the parking lot I locked myself in the car and my friends had to pretty much drag me inside...I was getting really nervous. My friend Gretchen said "Just go inside and look at the jewelry, you don't have to get it done if you really don't want to..." but then yelled "She wants her nose pierced!" and pointed at me the minute we walked in the door, so I was pretty much committed at that point. The guy at the desk told us the piercer was at lunch and would be back in about ten minutes, so I filled out the paperwork and picked out jewelry while we waited. I picked a little turquoise stud to match my turquoise hair.
The piercer finally came back and sat me down in the chair. I had purposely brought two people with me so each of them could hold one of my hands, but they weren't allowed to come into the piercing area with me for "liability reasons", so they had to stand behind the little counter area and watch. I don't remember too much about the actual process leading up to the piercing, I just remember seeing the receiving tube and being freaked out that that's what he was going to use to pierce me...I asked him what it was for and he explained they use those to catch the needle when it goes through so he didn't accidentally go too far and pierce my septum...information I was very happy to hear!
Now for the actual piercing part...all I really remember is feeling the needle push through all the layers of tissue in my skin, and even though the whole thing was over in 15 seconds it felt like MUCH longer....and yes, it hurt, BADLY! A lot of people I talked to said their nostril piercing didn't hurt at all, but mine was very painful, I'm not sure if it was because I had built the experience up to painful or if I was scared, the piercer also said I have unusally thick cartilage in my nostrils so that's why it hurt. I let out a very loud whimper (something the two girls that were with me still make fun of me for) but fuck, it hurt really badly!
My nose bled a tiny little bit and he wiped it up with some tissue, I remember sitting there and feeling very proud of myself that I actually went through with the whole thing, and then the piercer gave me a mirror to look at my new jewelry and I loved it! I waited until before I went to bed to wash the blood off and tried not to disturb it as much as possible...there were a few times the first few weeks I had it where I think I accidentally pulled on the jewelry while I was sleeping, and HOLY SHIT that hurts! I recommend putting a bandaid over it the first few weeks when you're sleeping if you find yourself pulling on it, it will save you a lot less pain and you won't accidentally pull the jewelry out in your sleep.
Okay so....about eight weeks go by, and I decide I want to change my little stud to a hoop. I get in my car and go to another piercing shop in downtown Chicago (Chicago Tattoo and Piercing) and tell them I want to change it to a hoop. One of the girls that had come with when I got it pierced came with for this also. I had never changed the jewelry before so I wanted the piercer to do it for me the first time. They picked out a hoop for me, and it seemed a little large but they claimed I needed a big hoop because my piercing was high up on my nostril...looking back I think she was using about a 14 or 16 gauge seamless ring.
We go in the back, she takes my stud out (ouch) and puts the hoop in, I feel her forcing the hoop through the piercing and it's pretty painful but I don't say anything because I figure that's what it's supposed to feel like. I pay and go home. My piercing is crusty and bloody again for the rest of the day but I assume it's normal and go about my business.
I wake up a few days later after the piercing has been continuously bloody and sore since I got the jewelry changed, and practically that entire side of my face is sore...and my piercing has green pus and gross stuff oozing out of it that was never there when I originally had it pierced, so that sort of sent up a little red flag for me. The skin around the piercing wasn't stretching to accomodate the larger gauge, it seemed to be tearing open around the piercing hole. I knew this wasn't good so I went to a THIRD piercing shop close to my house (Skin Gallery in Downers Grove) and the piercer wasn't there but the guy with the face tattoos at the desk told me to come back later that evening. I go back later and the piercer is there, I explain the situation to him and he takes me into the back room. He takes a good look at my piercing and says "Oh, you poor thing" which I assumed probably wasn't good. He told me my skin had started to reject the ring because the gauge was way too big and the piercer that put the ring in hadn't stretched it properly. The ring was stuck in my skin pretty much so he had to use a pair of sterile pliers to open it up and pull it out...but the minute he took it out I felt SO MUCH BETTER. He tried to insert a new nostril screw but it wouldn't go in, so he tried using a taper to reopen the hole and finally realized my hole had closed up from pushing the hoop out, so he would have to repierce it. I was not happy about this, but realized I would rather have it repierced than take it out altogether, so I told him to do it. It hurt just about as much as the original piercing did, but this piercer was extremely sweet and nice and made me feel very relaxed about the whole thing. He didn't even charge me for the repiercing, he just charged me for the jewelry. I was happy (and my face didn't feel like it was being pulled apart anymore) and decided to leave my piercing alone for a very long time!
My piercing was fine for a long time, and this time around I waited a full six months to try to change the jewelry again. I just changed it from a stud to different studs, sometimes it was a struggle to get them in but if I played with them enough it was usually fine. The only issue I had was that my piercing would bleed every time I changed it, even six months after the initial piercing, but I still had yet to ever have an infection or the dreaded "nostril bump" some people get near their piercing, so I didn't worry about it too much.
Finally this past summer I decided to try to the dreaded seamless hoop again, so I went back to Chicago Tattoo and Piercing but made sure someone else helped me this time, and made sure to tell them I wouldn't do it unless they used an 18 gauge hoop. The piercer picked out a much smaller hoop than the first time and took me to the back to insert it. He also noticed how my piercing bled and he had difficulty inserting the jewelry (he was able to put it through the first hole but had a hard time pushing it through to the other side, which is the same problem I had when I was changing my jewelry) and he finally got it in but told me not to change my jewelry again for six more months to let the piercing heal completely. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the hoop in for six months (hoops really itched my nose for some reason) so about a week later I changed it back to the stud and kept the stud in for a while.
Sometime in September I found a really cute (but very small) diamond looking stud that I wanted, so I wore that for a few weeks until the little fake diamond fell off the post. I let it stay like that for a while but finally wanted some sparkles back on my face so I tried to switch it out for another stud...but no such luck. I couldn't get any of my other jewelry in, even my 18 gauge things, because I think the little diamond one was a 20 or 22 gauge...I know there's not much of a size difference in those at all but my piercing refused to cooperate with anything...i couldn't even get the jewelry I had in there back in! I finally just decided to give up and retire the piercing, I liked it a lot but it had caused me so many problems that I just decided to give up. It was a very good piercing though, and if you're scared to get it but want one, go for it because you'll love it!