I've wanted my septum pierced since I turned thirteen years old. I was pretty obsessed with having it done at that time and spent the next year hassling my mom to let me. I showed her all sorts of piercing information on the internet and even went to see a nurse to set mom's mind at ease about the possibility of medical complications (which the nurse assured us were pretty unlikely). Finally my mom was convinced, so when I was 14, we went to a shop called Bee Cool in Calgary AB to see if I could have it done. The piercer there said they wouldn't do a septum for anyone under 16 because at that point your facial structure is still changing and a septum piercing could potentially be harmful. Obviously I was crushed, especially since my mom took this information as proof that she was right all along and this was obviously a BAD IDEA. Good little lad that I am, I decided to wait until I was old enough to alter my body without having my mom sign off on it, and that was that.
At A Glance Author d. Contact d.@bme.anon IAM pending When A month ago Artist Heather Studio Extreme Tattoos Location Medicine Hat, Alberta Fast forward four years and I'm STILL jonesing for this septum piercing. So a couple weeks ago, I was walking downtown in Medicine Hat AB, went past a tattoo/piercing shop called Extreme Tattoos, and I decided to just go for it. I had a bit of money in my pocket that day and didn't know when that would happen again, so in I went, slapped down $70 (a little steep yeah, but I was too determined to care much) and asked to have my septum pierced with a retainer.
The gal at the counter was pretty excited, saying it was "so cool" to do something "different" because she was used to always doing nostril and belly button piercings. Yes, the warning bells were going off inside my head, but I had waited FIVE YEARS for this and didn't listen to all those doubts growing. So she went to get the jewelry, a 16g retainer that I okayed because she said it was the only retainer they had, although I would have preferred 14g. Then she grabbed her cigarettes and went to go "set up", which I'm assuming meant have a smoke, since she came back out front to get me ten minutes later.
We went into the back of the shop where she disinfected the inside of my nose with some kind of alcohol solution, I think, telling me all the while to keep breathing through my mouth. I laid back on a bench and she fiddled with some clamps for a while, put them on my nose a couple times then switched to smaller clamps. Deciding she could see it pretty well, she told me to close my eyes and counted down from three and pushed the needle through on one, just as I opened my eyes. Then she quickly put the retainer in and that was that. I actually barely felt it and my eyes didn't water at all.
I went to check it out in the mirror and, to my dismay, it was crooked. I felt my heart sink- I had waited for so long and now it was all wrong. "It's a bit crooked, eh?"
"Oh yeah," she said, "but it's so close. Septums are reeeally hard to get perfectly straight. So can I take a picture?"
I was a little dazed and pretty disappointed at the moment, so I sort of half-heartedly agreed. Then she gave me a quick spiel about aftercare, saying to wash it in the shower and do sea salt soaks once a day and gently move the crusties away from the jewelry with a q-tip. She gave me a little package of sea salt on the way out and told me to call if I had any questions.
After flipping the retainer up, I basically left my nose well enough alone for the first day or so. The next day I flipped it down and again mourned its crookedness. After some brief internet research that told me crooked septums can sometimes be corrected, I gave it the first sea salt soak and gently pulled it in the opposite direction of the crookedness for about two minutes. I did this again for the next few days, pulling it towards straight twice a day as the swelling started to go down.
After about a week, I realized my septum piercing really was just plain crooked and there was nothing to be done about it. A couple days later, I took it out. Maybe I should have called the piercer who did it in the first place, but I don't feel comfortable having her do it again after I got such bad vibes the first time.
I still want that septum piercing pretty badly, so I'll have it re-pierced as soon as I have the cash again. But this time I'll do a little research about the shop and piercer I go to instead of following my whims into the nearest place.