A long while back, I got my right hand nostril pierced at 1.6mm, with the intention of just wearing a BCR in it. However, after a while, once it was fully healed the idea of just a ring seemed a bit boring, and after having recently read about orbitals, mainly ear orbitals, I decided to mix my nostril and the idea of orbital's to come up with a nostril orbital.
At A Glance Author phil.overbury Contact phil.overbury@gmail.com IAM Phil.overbury When Six months ago Artist Nikki Studio Hype Location Newcastle Well, I made a trip into Newcastle to talk to Nikki, my piercer about it. She said there seemed to be enough room to get an 8mm, or even 10mm, diameter ring in, but decided an 8mm would be the safer bet. So I paid my £20 and followed Nikki downstairs to the piercing room. She was rather excited to perform this piercing, as it was slightly different, and she had only done one before
After all the normal setting up for a piercing, cleaning the area, marking up etc (I have to say, Nikki is very good at this, and will spend a long time getting placement right, and is religious with cleaning and hygiene), we were ready for the needle go in. Well, as I've had a nostril piercing before, which was painless, I was not worried about it, and for good reason. It went with out a hitch, off course I had the standard eye watering from a nostril piercing, but it was all fine :) Jewellery wise I had a 1.6mm 8mm labret stud put in.
Nikki ran through the after care with me, clean it with salt water etc - you know the drill, and, as ever to text her if there were any problems.
Well, all was fine for the next two days, some swelling, but that's to be expected, but the 3rd day, I must have caught the piercing in my sleep, or knocked it another way, as it decided to swell up - a lot. Unfortunately the 8mm bar I had in (Id normally wear a 6mm) turned out to be far too short, and the ball started embedding in my nose. Well, after lots of Ibuprofen, and putting ice on my nose, I decided I needed to get a longer bar in. Annoyingly, I couldn't get in to see Nikki for a few days, so I had to change it myself. I don't own an autoclave, so had to do the best I could do to clean the new stud (boiled it in salt water for 10 minutes), I then put on some sterile rubber gloves and cleaned the area the best I could, got my 1.2 to 1.6mm insertion pin (also cleaned) and went to insert the jewellery - unfortunately I could not find the entrance hole at all, so I had to change my plan, and temporarily use a bar bell until I could go see Nikki and have her change it for another labret stud.
A week or so later I made it in to see her, and for some mad reason (I blame it on both of us being impatient and wanting to see the finished product), we decided that we would put the orbital ring in rather than a longer bar. I'm sure this would have worked, if we'd put the ball in the BCR, but we decided not too - as it was fiddly, and we decided it would stay in place with out - needles too say it didn't, and my poor little nostril got very irritated, and developed and internal bump (which I still have slightly after 4 months of having retired it) so we changed it to a labret stud again, which we decided to LTHA until it was healed.
After 3 more months, work got rather angry at me for having my piercings - apparently a customer once mentioned I wasn't the sort of person who looks like I would work in Cowell's Garden Centre - and I was asked to remove my piercings for work, after some negotiations, it was agreed that I could wear retainers in facial piercings, and my second nostril I could have a 2mm ball on, which meant downsizing. I was able to downsize myself, as I had a 1.2mm nose screw with a 2mm ball on. It worked well for several weeks, until one day, I woke up, and it had fallen out during my sleep. I'm sure I could have worked it back in, but, I decided my nostril was still unhappy from all the trouble it had when it was first pierced, and the fact it never healed fully that perhaps it was better to let it heal over, and have it repierced- hopefully with no hassle next time :)
I'm yet to get it redone, but hopefully it will be redone soon :)