I have been stretching my earlobes for about a year and a half now. The holes that I used to stretch from were pierced quite a long time ago with a gun. What did I know about guns compared to piercing needles? The holes weren't centered on my earlobes; they were closer to my head. I never really noticed how much more room there was on the outer side of my earlobes until recently.
At A Glance Author Tera Contact trinity500@hotmail.com IAM trinity500 When Three months ago Artist Dave Gilstrap Studio Enigma Location Pacific Beach/San Diego, California I had stretched my ears from 18 gauge holes to ½ inch with no problems at all. Once I wanted to stretch past ½ inch my ears became reluctant. Normally, after waiting about two or three months in between stretching my earlobes loosen up quite a lot, but not this time.
One day I was in Enigma talking to, the dearest, Didier Suarez about my earlobes and how they just wouldn't stretch. He examined my earlobes quickly and told me that I had a lot of skin on the outer sides of my lobes and that they would look quite a bit better if we 'redirected' the stretching. The redirection would basically do exactly what the word means. There would be an incision made on the outer side of my stretched hole to allow access to the extra tissue not being stretched on my earlobe. This process would give my ears the room needed to stretch more. Another affect would be a more centered stretching.
I took in everything Didier had to say about the process and definitely considered it. I care much about the appearance of my earlobes, so this process seemed nothing but beneficial for me.
A couple of weeks passed and I finally made my decision. I called the studio to let either Dave or Didier know that I would be in for the process. Dave was the one who answered the phone, and in result was the one who did the procedure.
Once at the shop with Dave, I sat around for a few hours talking with him. I was a bit nervous to have my earlobes cut, so I was working myself up for it. Having been informed of the process and aftercare, I began to relax. Obviously never having been through something like this could make someone a bit nervous. But then I told myself something. If I could go through a 2 gauge dermal punching of both my inner conches, I could get a small incision made on each earlobe.
Dave went into the piercing room and began to set things up. At this point, instead of being nervous, I became excited. My friend Marc was there and came into the room with me when the procedure was done. Dave had me come in the room and sit on the chair. He took my plugs out and cleaned off my earlobes. The three of us, all being friends, carried on a casual conversation about something and it definitely relaxed me. After cleaning my ears, Dave precisely marked where he would be cutting. I would be going from ½ inch earlobes to ¾ inch. Once he was happy with his marks, I sat back on the chair. At this point my heart was racing with excitement. The light above me softly shun in my eyes. Marc watched from aside as Dave prepared for the first incision on my right ear. I took the liberty of becoming more in tune with my breathing as method of relaxing. Then Dave told me to inhale deeply. I did as he said, and as I exhaled I felt an extremely warm sensation come fr om my earlobe as Dave made the cut. He quickly put in the new jewelry and made sure everything was in place as he tucked the small corners of access skin up in between my earlobe and the jewelry. As he was doing this I started to feel more pain than I had before, but it was nothing too overwhelming. Then I felt something warm and wet run from my earlobe to the back of my head. It was blood. Dave put gauze to help stop the bleeding. I began to feel my natural adrenaline rush kick in as Dave moved over to my left ear. Once again I started concentrating on my breathing. The same process went with my left earlobe; only I felt more pain this time. After the jewelry was put in, and as Dave tucked the extra skin up I was quite disoriented due to the double adrenaline rush. He placed gauze on my left ear as well for the bleeding. My head started to mildly throb from all the activity. I could feel how saturated the back of my head was with blood. Once my ears stopped bleeding, Dave cleaned them off and examined his work. Then I stood u p, slowly, and had my first look at my new earlobes. I was pleased with the first glimpse I had. Even though they had started to swell, it was obvious how more centered they were than before.
It's been a couple months since I had the 'redirecting' done, and my earlobes look great. They are centered, and have a great shape. I've talked to many people about earlobe 'redirection' and some think it is 'cheating' in the earlobe stretching process. I happen to think that if you are not satisfied with the direction that your ears are stretching, than you should get them redirected. Sure, after you've had the procedure your ears stretch a lot easier than they did before, but that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that YOU are happy with YOUR earlobes.