Let me just start off my little story by saying I have the world's most annoying earlobes. They don't like to cooperate with me at all. I first started stretching my ears about 5 years ago, almost by accident. My roommate at the time gave me a 14 gauge 1/2 pink niobium ring for my birthday. I was amazed. She never bought me anything before! At the time I wore just plain old, Claire's variety post earrings, and so I pushed and fought, and popped the new ring into my intensely angry left earlobe. I thought it looked cute, and that is what's important. Pink is my very favorite color, so it was absolutely perfect! After I quit art school, I got a piercing apprenticeship at a local studio back home, and I began really stretching that left ear, while leaving my right one kind of small. I had to fit in with everyone I worked with, peer pressure and all. HaHa! At one point I had a 6 gauge in the right lobe, and a ¾" in the left. A little lopsided you say? Ah, yeah. And believe m e, it was ok for awhile, but I soon wanted bigger and better things. I am never satisfied.
At A Glance Author Meg Contact serpenttitties@hotmail.com IAM serpenttitties When Six months ago Artist Luis Garcia Studio Infinite Body Piercing Location Philadelphia, PA Eventually I started stretching the right one, with the goal of matching up. HA! Easier said than done, let me tell ya. I never had any problems with my left ear. It stretched easily, and I usually went up a size one every other week, with only minimal irritation or crustiness. I had had piercers tell me it was almost bizarre how easily I stretched. I figured righty would be the same, but it was not. 6 to 4 went easy, but I had been wearing a 6 gauge ¾" captive bead ring for about 2 years. 4 to 2 was hell, with my lobe swelling up to twice its' normal size. I had to downsize and start over. Why do I put myself through so much aggravation for beauty?
Finally after much pain, discharge and swelling, I had a 7/8 in lefty, and a 5/8 in righty. Close enough to be tolerable, but not perfect. I walked around uneven for quite a while, feeling very off and unhappy, but that ear wasn't going anywhere. It was battle scarred, and it hated me.
And that brings me to getting scalpelled. I had thought about it for some time, tossing the idea round and round in my head. I liked the idea of evening up, but I was scared of the pain ( I am a freaking baby), and what to expect out of the healing, blah blah, all the excuses that filter through your brain when you start thinking about a new mod. There is no one in Cincinnati that I would really want to scalpel my ears for me. My friend Kevin had done it a few times, but I just don't feel comfortable getting stuff done by him. He makes me nervous as all hell for some reason. Then my thoughts turned to David Vidra, at Body Work Productions. He is who I consider "my piercer", but that meant going to Cleveland for a weekend, and I had NO money to speak of.
I finally got my chance in October 2001, when I went to Philadelphia to interview for a piercing job at Infinite. That's when I met Luis Garcia, my piercing hero. I had, of course seen lots of his work on BME and IAM, and I was very impressed. I immediately hit it off with him, and I decided that he would be doing the honors. I told him I wanted both lobes at an even inch, and we set about getting them there. I went through the usual stuff, getting them cleaned up, marked and so on. He put the forceps on righty, and made the first cut. God, it hurt. There was so much scar tissue in my lobe it was like cutting through an old leather shoe. He tried the taper, made another cut, and I had an inch lobe, complete with a steel tube! YAY! Next he did lefty, and that was nothing, I hardly felt it. I was very surprised at the lack of blood involved, and went right back to work.
That night I went out with some of my IAM buddies, and I bled in the bar a little, but nothing major. I survived.
Over the next few days I bled off and on, which was actually kind of good, because no one wanted to sit next the creepy bleeding girl on the Greyhound Bus on the way home. Haha! Good times.
It is now March 2002, and my lobes have gracefully, and more importantly, evenly stretched to about 1-1/2 inches. I couldn't be happier with them, although I am finding plugs impractical now; weights are much more comfortable, at least for me. I would suggest scalpelling only if you are really serious about wanting really large lobes, and you are ready for the problems that can come along with it. In cold weather, my lobes go numb and turn purple if I am not careful, and they get really dry, so I have to keep lotion on them all the time. Other than that, they are so amazing and beautiful.