At A Glance
Author	iam:background
Contact	comeseemycage@hotmail.com
IAM	background
When	A week ago
Artist	Karl Schmidt
Studio	Westside Tattoo & Body Piercing
Location	Brisbane, Australia

To tell the complete story of my septum would take a damn long time, and comprise many more boring pages than there already are. So I will do my best to condense it, focusing mainly on my most recent experience. But first I will provide a little bit of background info. (BTW If you are only interested in my latest procedure, you can skip further down and still be able to understand it)

In mid 2001 I decided to get my septum done at 14ga, with a retainer. Long story short, I ended up having it done five times in two weeks, due to the piercer being unable to get it anywhere close to straight. But hey, I was young and naïve and it was the only studio I knew of at the time.
Anyway, after the fifth time I decided it was close enough to being straight that I would let it heal up. This did not go according to plan, as I later found out that it was through the hard cartilage, rather than through the webbing (probably why it hurt so damn much). Due to this, and the fact that it was surrounded by damaged tissue from the other failed attempts, healing was problematic and painful at the best of times.

After eight or nine months of problems, I decided to retire it. Twas a sad day, but it had to be done. By that time I had met a much more reputable piercer (Jase, ex-Westside Tattoo) who offered to punch my septum through the webbing, which would achieve several things. It would heal a lot faster, being at a larger gauge. It would also remove some of the scar tissue from previous attempts, and the placement would be much more suitable for stretching.

So, after ordering a custom retainer (I still had to hide the piercing for work), Jase punched my septum at 2mm, then immediately tapered up to 3.2mm. It was straight and perfectly placed.
If I remember correctly, there was almost no pain from the punch; it just felt like a steady pressure on the side of my septum, and then relief when it slid through. The taper, however, was a very intense feeling. Not unlike driving a bus through one's nose, I would imagine.
After that, the healing process was very fast and unremarkable, and after six weeks I got the dreaded piercing funk smell. At two months I was able to stretch to 4mm with no problems.

Long story shorter, over the next twelve months I was able to stretch up to 9.5mm, but ended up downsizing to 8mm as it was making my nose quite large. It was after sitting comfortably at that size for about two months, disaster struck.
I went to the dentist and ended up having to go for x-rays, and they determined that I would have to have all of my wisdom teeth out, plus a sizeable chunk of my jaw that the crooked teeth had damaged.

When the date of the surgery came around, I had obtained acrylic pieces for all of my holes, except my stretched nipples (had to use bits of paintbrushes, as I couldn't find any acrylic long enough), and my septum. Before going under, I informed the anesthetist that I was wearing a single flared tunnel, and offered to remove it before the surgery, but he told me that I would be able to leave it in, as it wouldn't interfere with what they were doing. Hmm. I took his word for it...

When I woke up my face was a bloody mess (to be expected from jaw surgery). My first instinct was to stick my fingers up my nose to make sure nothing had happened to my favorite piercing. I was very confused when all I could feel was warm dripping flesh. After about twenty minutes I was conscious enough to ask just what the hell had happened, and a nurse grabbed my chart. Attached to it was a small snap closure bag, which contained my single flared tunnel, and what appeared to be a chunk of skin still on it. :o
The nurse informed me that they had to remove my jewelry during the procedure, and asked me why I would wear something into surgery that required pliers to remove... Wait a minute... PLIERS?!?!?!

Turns out they used needle nose pliers to tear out my tunnel through the sharp flared end, taking a good chunk of flesh with it. I was not a happy chappy. Nothing I could realistically do about it either. I can't help but feel responsible for it. I was under the assumption that doctors with eight to ten years of medical training could work out how to remove a simple piece of jewelry if necessary.

Note: Now that body piercing is becoming much more common in our society, I truly feel that doctors and nurses should be trained in the removal of all types of jewelry they may encounter. Some piercers are making the effort to visit their local hospitals and training the staff in this area, and I believe it is our responsibility as modified individuals to educate others about things like this.

Anyway, that surgery was almost four months ago now, and since then I have let the hole heal over. Normally septums, especially large ones, will never close up; but due to having my jewelry torn out it was effectively the same as reversing a tongue split, minus the sutures. Messy scar tissue grew over the hole, sealing it up within weeks.

Now over the last few years I have become very accustomed to having large pieces of metal stuck up my nose, and without my septum piercing I felt incomplete, almost as if I had lost a limb. A lot of people talk of their piercings being assimilated into their mental perception of themselves, becoming just as important, if not more important than their own flesh and blood. And to lose part of oneself would disrupt that perception... This is how I felt without my septum piercing.

...which would bring me to the next half of this experience: Having a 6mm chunk punched out and stretching straight to 8mm.

As soon as the hole closed over I started talking to Karl Schmidt from Puncture Body Piercing about re-punching it at a larger gauge and getting rid of the mess of scar tissue which now took up a good part of the inside of my nose. I chose Karl as the man for the job, as I know he has done a lot of large gauge work. He suggested massaging vitamin E oil into my septum for a couple of months prior to doing any work on it, to try and reduce the massive amount of scar tissue present.

Skip two months.

March. Went back to see Karl to discuss doing an 8mm punch and stretch to 9mm. On his recommendation, we decided to go for a 6mm punch instead, simply for the fact that an 8mm biopsy would almost certainly take out part of my cartilage as well, making it much more painful, and more difficult to stretch once healed. Made sense to me. So he set about obtaining the appropriate equipment and said he would call me when it came in.
Two weeks later he rang me and said I could come in the next day to do it, but at that point I didn't have enough cash, so decided to make an appointment for the following week. We would be doing the procedure at Westside Tattoo; Karl's other shop, to save me driving back from the Sunshine Coast while pissing blood out my nose.

That week went pretty damn slowly, to say the least. By the time the big day came around, I was shitting bricks (not literally, thank gawd). I was due to get it done at 11am, and my good friends Mel and Swirly accompanied me to the studio. I decided to wear a nice white shirt for the day, and hoped to make a bloody mess of it by the time the procedure was done. Yeah, I'm a sucker for blood and gore. We arrived right on eleven o'clock, but when we got there Karl decided he had to go and have a coffee first. Grrr. More waiting...

So the three of us set up camp on the floor of the shop while we waited for Karl to go and have his coffee and get all the equipment autoclaved. We were sitting there for twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes. Longest damn wait of my life. Not that Swirly helped at all, explaining in graphic detail how I would be able to feel every little twist of the punch as it tore its way through the sensitive tissue of my nasal septum. Bastard.

At Westside, the piecing is done downstairs, and the autoclaves are upstairs, so I was shitting myself every time somebody came down the stairs, as I thought it would be Karl with the statim tray. When he finally did come down, I was nervous as all hell. He called us into the piercing room at the back and started laying out all his equipment on one of those little tray/table things, like surgeons use.
On the tray was the 6mm punch, an 8mm taper, a 10mm receiving tube, a scalpel (in case the punch left the chunk attached), a smaller taper (I would find out what that was for later), my jewelry (an 8mm flesh tube, from Industrial Strength), gauze, alcohol wipes, q-tips, and a small cup of water.

Once everything was set up and the benches had been wiped down, Karl asked me to stand in front of him so he could inspect my nose and work out a good placement. He immediately commented on the very noticeable scar tissue on the left side of my septum, where the flare was pulled through. We then decided to punch above the scar tissue, but still in the webbing. This would allow me much more room to stretch in future. He didn't make any marks, as he would be feeling around with the punch and receiving tube before pushing it through, to find the best area.

Once that was done, I was asked to lie down on the dentist chair, and Karl adjusted it to the appropriate height. By this point, my heart was beating much faster and I was extremely nervous. I could hear Swirly commenting on how much it would hurt, so I promptly told him to shut his damn mouth. I guess he deserved to have a little fun, seeing as he volunteered to be the photographer, but still, it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear...

Once I was comfortable in the chair, Karl inserted the receiving tube into my nose, followed by the punch. He felt around with it for a few seconds before settling on a position quite high up in my septum. When he found the correct place, he put a little pressure on the punch, to hold it in position. This was very uncomfortable, as I could feel the sharp edges digging in, and I started to realize exactly what I was in for. He then asked me if I was ready, and I started to say something when he interrupted me with "Deep breath in!"

Before I could think, he started to push. Crikey. The feeling was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Very hard to describe. Imagine shoving an apple corer through the middle of your nose, and the feeling would be quite similar. Very very intense. But to Karl's credit, it was through in probably just over a second.

I couldn't see a damn thing, as my eyes had watered up pretty badly, but I could hear the people in the room cringing as he pulled the punch out and replaced it with the taper. This was the part I was dreading the most. The last time I had my septum punched, the taper was by far the worst part of the procedure. I asked Karl to hurry up and push the bloody thing through and he replied with "Dude, it's already through to size"
"You mean the big end is through??"
"Yeah dude, easy"
"I love you man."
Needless to say, I was very relieved. Quite strange that I didn't feel the taper being pushed through at all. Anyway, there was a slight problem. The chunk was still attached, so he attempted to cut if off with the scalpel while the taper was still in. Unfortunately, it was on an odd angle, so he asked the girl working the counter that day (sorry, can't remember your name!) to go upstairs and get his mosquito clamps. While she was doing this, Swirly got up close and got some nice gory shots.
She returned downstairs and Karl used the clamps to pull the chunk out from underneath the taper. I did not really feel this part; it just felt like my septum was being pulled around a bit.

Then it was time to insert the jewelry. This went as smoothly as anyone could hope, but was still quite an uncomfortable sensation. After the tube was in place, Karl stuck gauze up my nose and held it there until the bleeding slowed a bit. While he was doing this, he asked Mel to use the buttons on the side of the chair to bring me into a sitting position. As I moved forward, Karl kept even pressure on my septum until I was totally upright.

Then I discovered what the smaller taper was for.
"OK dude, here's the fun part! We get to put the O-rings on!"
Bugger.

He quickly inserted the smaller taper through the tunnel, which was quite unpleasant, as it was placed quite high up, so the pressure from my nostrils pushed the taper downwards to allow easier access to the tunnel. Now, anyone with a large gauge septum will be able to tell you how annoying o-rings are to get on. This was no exception. He put the first o-ring over the taper and moved it up towards the tunnel, then spent about two minutes fiddling around trying to get it to roll on, all the while making sure not to let the tunnel fall out the other side. This part was very painful; stuffing around with a freshly punched hole is not something I would personally recommend. Eventually he did get the O-ring on, and the second one was much easier.
The smaller taper was then removed, and the blood cleaned off my face. By this point my nose was fairly swollen, and I felt like it was sticking out quite far from my face, but a look in the mirror proved that it really wasn't distorted much at all, considering I just had 8mm of steel shoved in there.

After Karl had explained aftercare and everything to me, I decided to call it a day and head home to take some ibuprofen to try and stop it from swelling too much. That evening, it was much too painful to thoroughly clean it, but I did manage to get a cotton tip partway up my nose to try and remove some of the dried blood that had coagulated around the tunnel.

Over the next 48 hours it became VERY swollen and sore, despite having an icepack on it and taking lots of ibuprofen, so cleaning it thoroughly would have to wait a few days. I found the best thing I could do for it over those first couple of days was to boil some water, and stand above the stove and let the steam go up my nose, to loosen up any crusty blood and also rinse the area around the hole. After that, I would gently remove all the nice crusty bits with a cotton tip.

At 72 hours the swelling had almost totally gone down and I started to experience extreme discomfort, as my nostrils had settled onto the edges of the tunnel and started to become irritated. Also I noticed a strange smell, quite similar to vomit, but somewhat sweeter. It was much easier to clean though, and I managed to get all of the blood out.

By the time the sixth day (yesterday) rolled around, the discomfort from the tunnel rubbing against my nostrils was almost unbearable, and the smell was getting worse and worse, so I went back to see Karl and have him put in a shorter tunnel. He took out the longer tunnel and inserted a taper in one smooth movement. He then said to me:
"I think I know why it smells so bad... there's a piece of rotting flesh inside your tunnel"
Gross. Anyway, he quickly inserted the shorter piece, and I felt immediate relief from the constant irritation on my nostrils. Also the smell dissipated almost instantly. This made me very very happy.

This brings me to today, one week on. And I must say I am damn happy with my new septum hole. It is slightly crooked, but we will fix that up in a month or so with a handy scalpel. Aftercare consists of salt soaks, ¼ teaspoon (usually less) per cup of warm water, and basically keeping dirt and stuff away from it. Simple really. Anyway, thanks for reading my stupidly long experience, if you got this far, you deserve a medal :)