I'd waited for all of the age of seventeen until I could get my septum pierced. The day after my eighteenth birthday, I had the money and the balls to do it.
At A Glance Author liz Contact liz@bme.anon When A year ago Studio Absolute Tattoo Location Golden, CO I really should have thought more, though. At the time it didn't really occur to me to find out more about my piercer aside from "Hey can you pierce my septum?"
In retrospect it was all done wrong. I remember now that the guy didn't even clean the site [inside of my nose]. I found out later, too, that he'd done it in the wrong place. It was low down in my cartilage instead of in the soft separation between the cartilage, where a septum piercing is really supposed to go.
But I got it done at a ten gauge. At the time I worked at a body jewelry kiosk in a mall and so I got the perfect sized ring. Horseshoe. Tiny diameter. It was adorable.
What was funny about it is that I went right to work after getting it done - just one more mistake. A lot of adrenaline goes through your system when you get something pierced. It's really a good idea to give yourself at least a few hours to recover after a good stabbing.
The best part was that my boss hated it. It looked awesome and nobody could make me think otherwise, but he just hated facial piercings. It was ridiculous! He owned body jewelry shops, for fucksakes. Having it made me sales go way up. It made me glad to have a job where I got paid on commission. You would not believe how much more people trust your advice on jewelry when you have some of it through your face.
So I took a friend to hold my hand, and boy did I need it. I've since had it redone in the right place [which is a different story which I'll get to some day] and let me tell you, proper placement saves. It's easier for the piercer by far, and it's easier on the piercee because it hurts less, aggravates fewer nerves, bleeds less, and supposedly heals much better. Needless to say, in the wrong place it bled, hurt like hell, my eyes watered like crazy and I even drooled.
I guess I drooled a lot, actually.
It healed pretty quickly and without much problem.
Other than the fact that it started migrating.
It was subtle at first. One side was a little lower than the other. I wasn't sure if it was crooked or if I was just imagining it. I looked closely around the ring and noticed that there was the beginning of a little circular scar over the piercing. It was moving down. It got worse and worse. Slowly one side sank more and more. I went back to the shop where they couldn't offer any advice. They said that maybe the jewelry was too heavy. I changed it out for acrylic with no difficulty, but it kept sinking. In the end one side was still further down than the other but the whole thing was about to rip through the bottom of my nose.
It was tragic, truly. I even took some sad myspace-style pictures of my septum ring and I and our last moments together. There was no other option. Tough love.
Have you ever had rodents as pets? A lot of the time when mother rodents and other small mammals feel threatened, they end up eating their babies. It's a mess. It's horrifying. It scars little children. But it's their idea of cutting their losses, you know? That mother rat [or hamster, rabbit, whatever] has put all of her time and hormones and food and planning, all of her energy, into making these little babies. But if she really thinks that you or your cat or some other surrounding force of nature is going to eat those babies, she may as well beat you to it. If anyone's eating my babies, it's going to be me! AHAHAHAH!!
So yeah, I took it out. It closed up right away. It left a weird scar. I have it pierced again now [again, that's another story and a lot more interesting] but the experience was important. Never just pick a piercer who's convenient. Close by. Cheap.
If your piercer can't tell you something new about the piercing you want, he probably doesn't know much about it. Every piercing can be done the right way and the wrong way. Some people heal well enough that the wrong way is okay, but that's not common. Mostly it's just a terrible pain in the ass.
Read up on your piercer. Look through his portfolio. Ask a lot of questions. If you don't get informative answers, find somewhere else to get it done. If you're trying to save money or time with someone cheap and uninformed, you'll end up wasting a lot of time and energy.
Don't eat your own babies. Plan ahead.