At A Glance
Author	snowmellen
Contact	snowmellen@bme.anon
IAM	snowmellen
When	A year ago
Location	Toronto & Guelph, Ontario

Background

My previous experience, Lobe Stretching Diaries describes my initial gunned lobe piercings as a small child, then the gradual progress from 14 gauge to 8 gauge that took place over the span of 2 years.

This experience picks up where the previous left off, so without further ado:

Summer

It had been about a month since I had upped my ears to the 8 gauge acrylic CBRs, when, upon reaching up to touch my ears, perhaps to turn the earring (I have an unconscious habit of touching or playing with my lobes), it shattered in my hand. I had always been careful with them so that I wouldn't break them, and made sure they never came anywhere near rubbing alcohol which would make them brittle, but I suppose just the wear and tear, or perhaps the salicylic acid in my body scrub in the shower had made small cracks or rendered them brittle. Needless to say I was frustrated; I really liked them. I managed to get home and glue that one back together (luckily the break sat at the back of my ear, not inside where the glue would've been a problem) but it was only a matter of time before the other one went. This second one I couldn't put back together without direct contact between glue and ear, so for a while I wore one of the broken pieces, then the 8 gauge clear taper th at I'd used to get from 10 to 8, and then finally (when that would slip out continuously) a small slice from the inner ink tube of a ballpoint pen. Very classy, I can assure you.

Fall

Thankfully the solution to my jewelry problem finally came. My parting gift from one of my coworkers was a new set of 8 gauge acrylic claws which I wore happily for a month (finally, after almost an entire summer's worth of not having earrings, I had a matching set). However, all the summer's worth of fussing with various jewelry had loosened up my lobes considerably, in particular my right lobe, which has always been the loosest.

I had a set of 4 gauge acrylic curved talons in deep UV blue that I'd bought almost 2 years earlier, as a goal for myself. I had never skipped a gauge before; I knew that I had tough, unstretchy lobes and that I scar easily, so I had never wanted to risk it. I thought this time, however, that maybe all the natural stretching that had gone on would enable me to get at least most of the talons into my ears, and then I could slowly work the rest in over the course of the next few weeks, until I was at 4 gauge.

So I set out to do just that. I scrubbed my hands, ears and talons with my preferred antibacterial soap (chlorhexadine, generic Provon), laid everything out on a Kleenex on my desk and looked in a mirror. I used a touch of Polysporin for lubrication, and although a water-based lubricant would've been better, I can't seem get myself out of the Polysporin habit. I began on my right ear, and actually started from back to front so I could what I was doing, although I had intended to wear them with the tapered end at the back. I wanted to be able to see what was going on because I'd experienced problems with blowout lips before. I slid the taper smoothly in until the point where it was actually an effort to push, where I started to feel pain. I began to push with increasing force, but gradually so I could assess the level of sensation I was receiving from my lobes. At the point where the talon was about two thirds of the way in the burning/stretched feeling was pretty intense, my body was definitely telling me in no uncertain terms that it was not going any further. Not an overly painful sensation, but more of a "wrongness" feeling, like if I were to go any further I'd be doing a little bit more than a small amount of damage. I'm a big advocate of listening to my body and doing things at a healthy pace, so I stopped there. Once again, I figured out that skipping a gauge just wasn't going to work for me. I should have known better, really. I took out the taper, put my 8 gauge claw rings back in, and set out to wait for the cheap-but-decent jewelry vendors to come and set up their stalls in University Centre. My abused lobe was only angry at me for about a day: slightly reddened and it hurt when I bumped it, but within 24 hours it was happy and back to normal.

Late Fall

A month later we university students were visited by our first jewelry vendor of the semester. The vendor and I chatted a little and I picked out a pair of orangey-red acrylic claw rings in 6 gauge. The colour that I really liked was a swirled white and purple acrylic, but there were none in 6 gauge, but some in 4. The vendor's assistant commented that I could probably skip 6 gauge and not have any problems; I smiled and told him that I had 4 gauge jewelry at home, and I just couldn't get it through without causing my body more harm that I thought was healthy. I know my body and how tough it is to do anything. I bought the 6 gauges and happily took them home.

I have a personal policy on waiting a few days after buying jewelry to put it in, so three days after buying the claws, I got myself all set up again. I had scrubbed my ears just a few hours earlier in the shower, so I just scrubbed the jewelry and my hands down with my chlorhexadine soap and broke out the Kleenex, Polysporin and mirror. Pulled my hair back, took out my 8's and set to work on the right one again. I worked back-to-front, and slid the jewelry in to where it began to stretch and kept up the gradual pressure. I felt a burning sensation, and for a brief millisecond had the panicked thought that maybe even these would be too big, and then all of a sudden the increasing burning transformed into a dull heat. It was through in record time, with very little pain indeed.

The other was the same (without the panicked thought, mind you). It was probably the easiest and quickest stretch that I'd done since I went from very loose 14's to 12's. Within barely 2 hours of them being in, my ears had ceased to throb or feel warm and only burned slightly when I bumped them (and complained loudly when I took my shirt off to go to bed: I had forgotten about them and removed it roughly). I cleaned them in the shower the next day with my regular antibacterial body wash and they felt fine. The right one, always the easier stretch, was completely back to its old self within 24 hours, and the left one was just slightly warm and still felt a little thickened when I scrubbed it. I kept the surrounding area clean by scrubbing in the shower, until they felt loosened up on their own that they would turn easily and I could clean and rinse the soap through. For the right one it was only a few days before this was comfortable, but for the left one it was almost t wo weeks before I felt it was ready for vigorous turning.

Very happy with the current look of my ears, I settled into my next waiting period.

Late winter/early spring

Exams, then the holidays, then the early snowfall leading to a busy and early snowboard season all conspired to delay my next stretch. I try to ensure that I have a healthy, stress- and helmet-free week ahead of me every time I do anything to my body. Finally that week came. I was home, by myself on a Sunday night, and I wouldn't be back on my board until Friday.

I got out those poor neglected 4 gauge blue acrylic talons from their little ziplock back in my jewelry container. I set out the mirror, washed up my hands, ears and earrings with my chlorhexadine soap and set them out on a Kleenex. I had taken off the black o-rings that came with the talons, as well as a pair of smaller, stretchier clear o-rings that came with my 6 gauge claws, and these lay on the Kleenex as well. Looking in the mirror, I started with my left, and more difficult, lobe. It slid in easily most of the way up, I was quite surprised actually by what appeared to be the slight difference between the 6 and 4 gauge. At that point the heat of stretching began, and I pushed the talon slowly through. It wasn't particularly intense, but I discovered that when I finally did get to the 4 gauge section that it was difficult to keep a grip on the talon. I actually had it slip forward through my ear (out the large end) while I was working to get the o-ring on the back. Threading it through the now-protesting hole the second time was less than pleasant, but I discovered that by placing the o-ring on the back and then inching the whole thing forwards I could get it sit in the appropriate position without slipping back. I used the smaller clear o-rings, as the larger black ones didn't have the stretch in them to hold on to the talons.

I used the same o-ring-on-back, inch-the-talon-forwards technique on my right ear and it worked very well. The left one felt definitely sorer than the right one, entirely due to the greater amount of abuse it received.

Later that evening I used a little bit of chlorhexadine on some warm, wet q-tips to clean off most of the Polysporin (since it's not great stuff in the first place). Both ears felt rather warm and the bottoms of my lobes were slightly reddened and looked a little taught, but otherwise they looked and felt very good for all that had happened to them.

A week later, I'd been extremely busy, had several late nights and had been wearing my helmet all weekend. I'd been cleaning them in the shower with my normal antibacterial body wash, but they'd been rather sore and I don't like to force the jewelry to turn or move before it wants to. However, back home and with some time to inspect them, I was a little concerned that they were still sore, and the lower curve of my lobe still slightly swollen. I prepared a nice, warm sea salt soak and soaked them each with my head sideways, ear-in-cup style. This made them feel much better, but as I was drying behind them carefully with q-tips I was rather alarmed to find tiny traced of blood coming from the left one. I scrubbed my hands down and whipped out the mirror. Carefully I slid the talon out of my softened left lobe. It slid out easily, without discomfort, but I was alarmed by the amount of gunk on the talon. It wasn't that much, all told, only thin white traces of the uppermos t dead skin layers; but trapped against the o-ring was a small crusted ring with the brown tinge of dried blood. I scrubbed it well with antibacterial soap, angry with myself to have done such a poor job of keeping them clean, and flipped up my lobe to inspect the back. It was slightly reddened and irritated-looking, but there was no sign of where the blood had come from. I gave it a good scrub with the antibacterial soap as well, noting that there were two areas on the hole that felt thickened, signaling inflammation.. I then reinserted the now-clean talon, which slid in easily despite using only a bit of water for lubrication. I repeated the same procedure on the right lobe: it was only slightly gunky, with no trace of blood. I made sure that the o-rings sat farther back from my lobe, not squeezed right up against it, which I think could have contributed to part of the irritation of the left.

From then on I took special care to clean them thoroughly in the shower in the morning, removing and scrubbing the jewelry. They were still slightly swollen around the bottom of my lobes and the thickened parts persisted for quite a while. They started feeling better, and then I was feeling a little under the weather and they started to thicken and get sore all over again. It was a bit of a roller-coaster ride for a week or two, and one day I was rather alarmed to see the skin all over my right lobe peeling, I experienced a brief moment of panic before I noticed the skin on my cheek peeling as well and remembered the sunburn I'd gotten over the weekend. That realization certainly came as a relief. But with careful, consistent cleaning they finally healed completely and became comfortable, with no lasting damage.

I found that I really had to be careful wearing the talons on a long-term basis. I'm not a big fan of o-rings at all I don't like the way they look or feel, and I've always somehow managed to wear my jewelry without them. Not so with these talons. From day one I've been wearing the little clear o-rings on the backs of the jewelry, and as long as they're not pinched or pushed right up against my skin it's not a problem. However, I found that within 2 weeks of wearing the talons that they would fall out overnight while I slept. By the time I woke up several hours later, rummaged around in the bedsheets and finally found them, lubed them up and re-inserted; my lobes quite sore and angry for the rest of the day from this re-stretching insult. From then on I began wearing the black o-rings in the front overnight, taking them off during the day for aesthetics and comfort. A bit of a pain, but tolerable.

In retrospect, talons would be far from my first choice for everyday wear, but since I didn't realized this at the time, I arranged for my next jewelry: one 2 gauge talon, one 0 gauge talon, both in the matching colour of deep blue acrylic. I figured I could be slightly lopsided through this transition, to save on jewelry (having the jewelry and taper in one), since I wasn't planning on spending as much time through these steps.

Spring

As of now, my ears feel very comfortable with the talons. My lobes feel soft, supple and loose, and if the jewelry should fall out for a few hours, it's not a difficult thing to re-insert. I definitely need to wear the black o-rings in the front at night, but it's become a bit of a ritual as I get ready for bed, like taking out my contacts and washing my face, it's not that much of a hassle. My plan to proceed using a single matching talon in 2 and 4 gauge should work well, since I've gotten used to wearing this jewelry, so I'm less pessimistic about it than when I originally put in the talons. I'm still waiting on my 2 gauge talon to be mailed to me, however, that to proceed farther in my journey

Seeing as how it's been a year from when I originally began keeping this particular chapter of the diary, however, that'll have to be another story for another day.