I admit it. I'm a wuss. I wanted my nose pierced very badly, and it was only this that kept me from turning around on my way to the piercing studio. I was having heart palpitations the whole way. I got there just before closing, and no one seemed terribly excited to see me. They just stared at me expectantly until I blurted out, "is there someone here who could pierce my nose?"
A gigantic man (probably around 350 to 400 lbs) sighed and heaved himself off of the couch. "Fill out the paperwork and come on back," he said. I was surprised that the paperwork didn't include any questions about allergies, medical conditions, or medications-- I'm used to this from my normal tattoo shop. I filled it out and followed him into a booth, visibly shaking. He took out what looked to me like a huge needle. "What gauge is that?" I asked timidly. "Sixteen," he grunted. This also surprised me, because I thought the standard for piercing noses was an eighteen gauge, but then again what the hell do I know about nose piercings? So then I asked, "relative to other piercings, about how painful is it?" He paused. "Well," he said, "it ain't gonna tickle." This did nothing to comfort me.
Through every step of the way, he stopped to emphasize that his tools were either freshly opened or autoclaved. I was too distracted to care.
He lubed up his finger with some funny smelling goop and stuck it up my nose-- an experience that was strange, but not as uncomfortable as I had anticipated. Then he put the receiving tube against the inside of my nostril, and the needle against the outside. He told me to take three deep breaths (not easy when you feel like you're going to hyperventilate) and then he went ahead and pushed the needle through. I was astonished to find that it hardly hurt at all! My helix piercings hurt far worse, and they weren't even that bad.
I asked him about aftercare and here's the weird part: he told me not to clean it with soap, ever, at all. Has anyone else ever been told this? His reasoning was that the soap gets into the piercing and this is bad. It sounded strange to me so I've been using soap anyway, along with sea salt soaks. I hope I'm not doing a Bad Thing. Seems to be going alright so far.
Well, that's my story. Wasn't that bad, although I wasn't entirely satisfied with the shop I went to. Hope someone found this amusing or helpful!