For as long as I can remember, modification has been a facet of my life. My parents are fairly involved in the music scene in Portland, and modification just comes along as part of the package. So my interest began at a young age – I was constantly drawing on myself to try and mimic my parents' friends' tattoos, and sticking little jewels on my ears or my face to duplicate their piercings. I was incessantly pestering my parents to just please let me get my ears pierced. I had to wait until I was 14 to get my ears pierced, and I demanded they take me to a piercing studio, having read up on piercing guns. That started it all. A year later my ears were stretched to ½ inch and I was asking for piercings for my birthdays, but to no avail. My dad, while a cool guy, was not into his youngest daughter "ruining her beautiful face" with a whole bunch of metal. So, I waited until my 18th birthday a little more than 2 months ago to make my next foray into body modification.
At A Glance Author Staying Hopeful Contact Staying Hopeful@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Najwa Studio Black Hole Body Piercing (westside locale) Location Portland, OR
I'd been tagging along with older friends to piercing and tattoo studios for several years, getting a feel for which studios I liked best. The Westside Black Hole location had been my favorite; they have a friendly, knowledgeable (not to mention hilarious) staff, are always good about making the piercee feel completely comfortable, and are clean, so that is where I decided to go to get my tame (and parent-approved – I'm not much of a rebel) nostril piercing. I have quite a few friends with nostril piercings and they all said the same things in regards to it, pain wise – that it was "basically painless". Painless, parent-approved, and job-acceptable? I was sold.
So I made my way there one afternoon after school with a friend (who has a fairly impressive amount of piercings herself) who wanted to hold my hand. The man who I originally thought was going to pierce me (whose name escapes me, unfortunately) didn't end up piercing me, and instead handed me off to a woman I had never seen there before, Najwa. She was extremely amiable and seemed very competent. I took a deep breath but then on the exhale, I automatically knew something had happened that wasn't supposed to happen.
In a word, it hurt. I have a fairly high pain tolerance, and this was a hurt that I had never experienced before, and my eyes didn't water, which I had heard was the "worst" thing about nose piercings. It seemed like the second the needle went through my nose, my temples started pounding in an extremely good imitation of a migraine, and an intense ache immediately started in my nose, radiating out onto my face. I'll admit I was a little freaked out, but just thought that it was my body's own weird reaction to having a needle shoved through it. I probably should've been tipped off by Najwa looking at me for a minute then saying "Huh. You're bleeding. That's strange." I'm not a big bleeder, and I had heard that nostril piercings didn't bleed a lot, so I was kind of taken aback. But I thanked her anyway, and went to the front to pay. It was about this time I realized that the side of my nose where piercing was located was numb, and not just that side but that whole half of my nose, as if it had fallen asleep. I expressed my concern at this, but the other piercer on duty just looked at me and said "Well, you did just shove a needle through it." I accepted this, left, and took some Ibuprofen. It helped, but my nose ached and was numb for the rest of the day.
Jump to several weeks later and my nose still hasn't regained complete feeling. So the only thing I can surmise is that the piercing has somehow compromised a minor nerve. I thought to myself "whatever, it's only a little bit of sensory lack on the tip of my nose, I can deal with it" and left it in, following the sea salt soak instructions Black Hole gave me and being careful about getting it in water, catching on things, etc. Unfortunately, despite my care, I developed a nostril bump. Then again, I did wake up one night seemingly trying to claw it out of my face, so that doesn't really surprise me. Extreme hay fever probably didn't help.
Another few weeks and despite my continuing sea salt soaks and vitamin E oil rubs to convince my nostril bump to go away, it had, in fact, grown. I knew this meant that the problem was direct agitation of the piercing, not inferior jewelry or aftercare. I remembered telling my parents that if I had any problems with the piercing itself, that I would take it out and allow it to heal. So, heaving a mental sigh, I took out my nose screw and soaked my newly naked nose in sea salt solution. If I had things my way, it would've healed perfectly. But I knew what risks I was possibly taking getting pierced in the first place, so I can't say that I'm really that disappointed.
I took out my nostril screw four days ago, and that, coupled with continuing sea salt soaks and vitamin E oil rubs, my nostril bump has already shrunk to half its previous size. In retrospect, the bummer of having to retire the piercing was definitely worth the self knowledge that I gained. This is not my last foray into modification, to be sure.