High nostril piercings

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Tuesday July 8th, 2008 @ 5:35 PM

Filed under: Nose

Hi,

I’ve looked on BME and though there are a lot of pictures, I can’t really seem to find much info on High nostril piercings. I have a couple of questions about them.

1. Are they a bit nicer to heal since they are in a less irritable area?

2. Are they more prone to infection due to being a bit more difficult to clean inside the nose? How does one go about cleaning them?

3. What kind of jewellery is recommended? Nostril screws fall out a lot, but would they stay in better in a high nostril piercing? (I’m wondering because I have NO talent with the screws)

4. What’s the length of time to heal them? I’m going to be mechanic and if I get them done a month before I start my training would they be okay?

I really appreciate your help! Thank you!

I haven’t seen a big difference in healing between high nostril piercings and more traditionally-placed nostril piercings. In theory, it does seem like they should heal faster since they are slightly more protected. But in my experience, they seem to heal with about the same occurrence of problems. Keep in mind of course, high nostril piercings are much less common than standard nostril piercings, so it’s not exactly an accurate comparison.

One thing to remember is that no piercing is really more prone to “infection” than any other piercing. Infections don’t just magically appear. You have to get germs/bacteria into your piercing, and in a sufficient quantity, to start an actually infection. This most commonly happens by touching a piercing with dirty hands, letting other people touch it or getting other people’s saliva or bodily-fluids on your piercing. Also, poor hygiene will increase the chance of infection. If you don’t take care of yourself and/or have a compromised immune system on top of man-handling your piercings all the time, you’ve set yourself up nicely for an infection.

I would suggest cleaning high nostril piercings just as you would a standard nostril piercings…a couple times of day, soak in a warm sea salt and water or saline solution. With high nostril piercings it will probably be easier to do a warm salt water/saline compress than actually soaking them.

Nostril screws would likely stay in better in high nostril piercings, as there is less room for the jewelry to move around in general, and specifically less room for the nostril screw to rotate around the 90 degree bend before hitting septum. Another great option for high nostril piercings is a labret-stud type jewelry. They would definitely be more a challenge when it comes to trying to change them yourself, but you also don’t have to deal with the curl of a nostril screw irritating your nasal passages.

Healing time is going to be in the range of 2-6 months I would say…very similar to a standard nostril piercing. Now, if you are going to need to remove them after a month for your mechanic training, you are likely going to have problems. If this is the case, I would suggest purchasing retainers for your piercings that you can put in when your training starts and which would be left in for the duration of the healing time.

Hopefully this helps.

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