My parents have always told me to have patience with things. Did I ever listen to them? Of course not. What teenager does? So this rule seemed to apply when stretching my ears.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact xmakeupyourmindx@hotmail.com When It just happened It didn't seem like much of a problem at the time to push my ears past their limit, as I'd had no problems stretching before. So in a fit of impatience, I pushed a 1/2" plug through a 9/16" hole. It was a very tight squeeze. But all seemed well, and I wore the plug for three days. But one sunny day, I awoke to feel my plug falling out (I had no o-rings on at the time). As I reached up to put the plug back in, I felt something drip down my neck. Upon touching the wet part of my neck, I discovered that what had dripped on me was my own blood. From my ear! I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see what on earth had happened. A dog could've chewed on my ear and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. I had really done it this time. I had blown it out. My ear turned itself 100 percent inside out. And it was disgusting.
So of course after this little mishap, I had a huge amount of blowout. It was probably at least 1/8" to 1/4" thick. People were pretty grossed out by it. I constantly got questions on it and constantly got grossed out faces.
But being under age at the time, there was little I could do about it. As I'm not sure how legal scalpelling is in CT, I'm leaving out the artist's name and shop, just incase. But moving on...I finally turned 18. And was so happy that I could get my ear worked on. So I talked to my piercer and made an appointment. This was quite a busy day for me, as I had just gotten my license about 3 hours earlier. So my friend and I drove down to the shop (going 40 in the snow). I plopped myself down in the dentist chair and let him look at it. This was only the beginning. Today was only the tying off. So out came the nylon and on with the tying. It was pretty tight, but didn't hurt until after I left the shop. By the next day, it was practically black, it was so dead.
Two days alter, we return. I plop once again. The nylon comes off, the plug (3/4" at this time) come out, the clamps go on. The clamps hurt quite a bit actually, but I didn't mind too much. He took off the biggest piece first, which literally looked like a slug. It was full on nasty. After that, we stopped the bleeding, as we thought we had removed enough of the scar. But upon further investigation, we discovered that a) I only had acrylic plugs on me at the time and b) I could no longer even fit those in the lobe. So we decided to reshape the lobe a bit by removing more of the blowout than we had originally thought necessary. So we did just that. Stopped the bleeding once more, put a plug in, and sent me on my way.
Two more days later I returned to have one final piece cut off. That took all of about a half-hour, whereas the original sitting took close to three hours because of bleeding. Damn, I made such a mess, I even got blood on the floor!
But it's a day later, and my ears seems petty ok. Sadly, I had to downsize from 3/4" to 5/8". But I'd rather let it heal and just have patience this time. Sea salt soaks and jojoba oil are now my new best friends and shall remain so for a while. After my ear is healed, I plan to have both lobes scalpelled up to 7/8". That way, patience is not an issue!
So now it's time for advice. First of all, for anyone considering stretching their ears, I think it's a wonderful and fulfilling experience if done properly and with patience (the key). If you're too cheap to have your piercer do it for you, at least consult them first. Second, if you do unfortunately blow your lobe out, or already have, I highly recommend getting your lobe tied off and scalpelled (so far). I think the two most painful parts of the procedure were the clamps, and the chemicals which were applied afterwards to clot the blood (that stuff burns!). But as far as the actual scalpelling, I didn't even feel most of it. And this is coming from a wimp, so you can take my word for it. But I can't stress enough the importance of patience. If I hadn't been so antsy, I would've never gotten myself into such a bloody mess.