At A Glance
Author	Alicia
Contact	Alicia@bme.anon
When	Five years ago
Artist	Gunned/Self-done
Studio	Piercing Pagoda/Home
Location	Allentown, PA

Phase One - piercing and ignorance

My lobes first had metal through them when I was ten. I thought being able to hang things from my ears would be oh-so-pretty. Unfortunately, my father didn't. I remember talking to him about my eventual plans of having several piercings in each ear, and he just laughed at me and told me no. So, after a while of debating, I made a bargain and asked him if I could just get one little lobe piercing per ear. He finally relented, and off we went to the mall.

We approached the dreaded Piercing Pagoda, and I saw some garnet (my birthstone) studs. They were 18k solid gold, which meant they were "pricey" in the eyes of a ten-year-old. I thought they were nice, and my father was being nice, too, so he allowed me to have them. Little did I know I just barely got by with the most acceptable jewelry there for fresh piercings. Many were 14k gold, and the majority was sterling silver!

I was sat down, and a fairly pleasant woman swabbed my ears with alcohol, and retrieved the gun. My antsy young mind wasn't focused very much, so I can't recall how she handled the gun or how she inserted the jewelry. I do remember she didn't use gloves, and I never saw anything sanitized past the swabbing of some rubbing alcohol.

She actually did a very nice job of marking my lobes... with an obviously already used Sharpie. Today, I notice that the right one might be thought to be ever so slightly closer to my head, but that may simply be my imagination. Even if it is closer, they're so very accurate, I doubt they could have been better marked.

Unfortunately, good marking doesn't make up for the piercing itself. She held the gun up to my right lobe and I closed my eyes tightly. Then, she shot me. I now had a 1mm bullet hole in my lobe. And it hurt - insanely. My ear was throbbing like all hell. I told her to please just do the other quickly, so she reloaded the gun, and shot me again. Another quick swab with the loathed alcohol, and I was done. I was handed the typical "ear solution," instructed to clean them with this every morning and night, turning them occasionally, and wiping away blood and gore with an ear swab. When the solution ran out, I could either buy more or continue with rubbing alcohol or peroxide. But not the 6% hydrogen peroxide – oh, no! – I'd better go with the 3%.

Walking more throughout the mall, my ears continued to throb relentlessly. I kept wanting to put pressure on them, like I did with all my wounds, because it always helped relieve pain. They grew very red and swelled horribly. I was a hardy girl, so I didn't cry, but I couldn't help continuing to remark that the pain was unexpectedly much. My dad just laughed, having never been gunned or pierced at all. He figured I was just being a typical little girl. I repeat – I was a very hardy little girl! I did not complain with undue reason!

So we continued to meander, me wincing, acutely aware of the swollen, weepy messes that were my lobes. Eventually we went home, and I stared in the mirror at my poor, abused new holes with dread. That night I began to clean them, but found it to be too painful. I left them be, and tried to sleep.

It was very difficult to sleep. I'm a constant side-sleeper, and always have been. That night I was forced to sleep on my back. I hate sleeping on my back, because my spine's always been just a little too curved, and straightening it all out so much was very uncomfortable.

I also couldn't curl up my legs, which would help alleviate the stiffness of them being straight all day long. I've always had joint problems due to my high foot arches. Your arches are designed to absorb the shock taken from hitting the ground walking, landing from a jump, etc., so it doesn't travel up through your bones and damage your ankles and knees. My arches, being higher, flatten to a larger extent on landings than normal arches, and hence absorb more shock. This gradually damages my ankles and knees, so that I am forced to wear arch supports in my shoes. In fact, though, my arches are so high, that most arch supports designed for assistance with high arches weren't supportive enough for me. My ankles were known to spontaneously give out from constant painful pressure, and sleeping curled up would help this.

For days, my sleeping was troubled and painful. For days, I could barely touch my angry lobes - not the piercings and jewelry; I could barely touch any part of my lobes without thick pain.

Eventually, my lobes calmed to the point that I could "care" for them. I then diligently drenched them in alcohol, and rotating my dangerous studs became an unconscious habit of mine.

I managed to go for months without any problems whatsoever (after the initial healing). At that point, I got what I called "infections." Of course, it wasn't such. My ears would often get plenty irritated. I recall them returning to their throbbing, thick phase from time to time, too. I now realize I had fairly common abrasions from shredding my fistula to bits with all the rotating in of debris, and thence the given abscesses that accompanied this, as the debris was often unclean, and the bacteria would work into the abrasions and have tissue heal over it.

Occasionally, the petty little butterfly backs would fail me, and fall off. The damned things did this in my sleep often enough. When this happened, I'd wake up with the back of my lobes somewhat healed. Oh, my poor lobes, trying to mend themselves! I, of course, just jammed the "sharp" back of the stud through the healing tissue. Over the years, this happened a few times with each lobe, more so with my left. I remember one time with my left lobe where it was healed quite a lot, and... *shudder* goodness, that was excruciating. I was sobbing and flinching constantly as my father tried to poke the stinging, alcohol sodden device of destruction back through my complaining flesh.

Phase Two - stretching... and ignorance

After about 5 years of this mutilation, I drifted into body modification. I learned how to properly heal piercings, and grew fond of the idea of stretching my lobes. I undertook the (then) admirable goal of fully healing my pissy lobes before beginning this. I thought it would take a while, as it was 5 years and my ears were still unhealed... Pfft. Taking up the correct regimen and abandoning the shitty nickel-abundant earrings I used and just leaving the holes empty, my ears became entirely content and happy within a couple weeks.

I then began stretching. I had no proper jewelry, so created makeshift rings from wire. The wire was probably about 16ga. I wrapped a few layers of Teflon tape around them, put some hand lotion (yuck - I later realized it contained alcohol) onto the jewelry and my ear, and eased them through my lobes. The "jewelry" was then probably 14ga or 13ga.

After about three or four weeks, I removed them, and found them to be covered in some lovely crusties. I removed all PTFE layers and began again. I ended up with a thickness of about 3mm, so approximately 11ga. I followed the same pattern, and got them in. Within a few days, my right ear exploded in that fairly familiar syndrome of thick soreness. I was reluctant, but removed the crap I'd put in my ears to find them begin to ooze blood, puss, and lymph. I placed only the plain wire in, and soaked with salt soaks. I was fine within a few days, and returned to the same "gauge."

Jump to around three-four weeks later. About this point, I realized just how horribly I was treating my lobes... once again. I'd gotten further into educating myself on mods in general, and knew this was just not the way to do things. My lobes were extremely unhappy with the uneven layers of PTFE, edges I was absolutely poor at smoothing, and needed to be treated better. I made some little 10ga tunnels from hollow, plastic ear swab shafts. These slid in easily, as it was a tiny stretch, and my ears were ecstatic within a week.

I was stupid. I was impatient. I grabbed some 10ga pen ink cartridges from my handy dandy Bic pens, and made another pair of tunnels about a week and a half later. I wasn't as careful with the edges of these as I was with the last, and buffed them carelessly. I must've left a jagged enough edge on the end of one. When I put them into my ears, my left complained (who could blame her?). My right... that didn't go so well. I discovered the hard way that the inside of my ears was nothing like smooth. The scar tissue built up over the years from gun abuse was disgusting, and lumpy. The slightly jagged edge of the tunnel caught on a lump, and tore it open. Pain, blood, and massive humiliation. I wanted to smack myself.

I took up soaks again, and, not then knowing about the scar tissue, and thinking it was solely the fault of my half-assed buffing job, I assumed my ear was no worse off after that mistake, when it was amiable again about ten days later. I ordered some acrylic jewelry from BMEshop, including a pair of bright red, 6ga CBRs. They came about a week later, and I waited another 3 weeks after they arrived to put them in my lobes.

Having been left alone for 5 weeks, my thoroughly scarred lobes took to this stretching quite well. That five weeks had added much to my education, as well. I fetched myself some KY Jelly, and scrubbed down the CBRs with some unscented anti-bacterial soap. I placed a dollop of KY on a tissue, and put the CBRs next to it, putting the tissue on my bureau, before my mirror. I trekked to the bathroom, removed my pathetic tunnels, chucked them, and cleaned my ears with the same soap as I had for my jewelry. I returned to my bureau, dipped the end of a CBR in KY, wiped the excess with another tissue, wiped a drop onto the front of my lobe, too, and held up the CBR to my piercing. I got the angled edge in easily, and after a moment of pressure, she popped right through. I was hit with wincing, eye-narrowing, beautiful, shocking pain. I enjoyed that for the second or two it was present, and repeated things for my other lobe.

Phase Three - resort to Plan B

Ashamed of my previous stretching practices, and horrified of the years of gun and stud abuse, I was quite proud of my fresh, much more responsibly done lobe stretching. After about 3 weeks, two weeks after they'd become entirely comfortable and natural feeling, I took them out for the first time. My hole was now large enough that I could see the fistula enough to analyze it for the first time. I saw just how much scar tissue there was, and was appalled. I blamed it all on my years of gun abuse, but knew spitefully that some of it was from stretching abuse, too. Either way, I knew it was due to ignorance, and not practicing common sense.

The scar tissue was so monstrous and dominant, that when I applied pressure to the back of my holes, a solid, tough tube of scar would protrude several millimeters from the front of my lobe.

I waited a few months with the CBRs in, researching, and learning. I took my time in making my decisions, and became knowledgeable to practice common sense. I became a responsible member of the body modification community. This was the end of it. I knew I couldn't keep these holes. With some experience behind me, my lessons learned, and knowledge of the problems arising from my current piercings, I had to come up with a new plan. I was on the brink of the "point of no return." For many lobes, shrinking to normal size doesn't happen past 4ga. For thickly scarred lobes...who knows? I couldn't stretch further, as I knew it would cause problems in reaching my long-term eventual goal of 1/2"-3/4", and probably in reaching my short-term goal of 00ga. I knew I would have no breaks given to me with shrinking later on.

I sadly took out my CBRs. Within a couple of hours, I couldn't fit an 8ga taper through my lobes. Within days, they'd shrunk to about 10ga. Right now, I'd say they're somewhere around 12ga.

I plan to wait a few more months until the holes are smaller than 2mm, and then dermal punch them at just that to remove all the scar tissue. I'd start fresh. To save them as much trauma as I can, I'm going to initially stretch them right to 8ga, too.

I've no worries at all about punching them. I've got very healthy, thick lobes disregarding my current piercings. The flesh between the piercing and edge is thick, and the depth from front to back is thick. They're nice and round, and I'm also only removing 2mm of flesh. If I decide at about 4ga or 2ga that I want them to shrink, they'll probably shrink to at most a 10ga, and I'll be happy with that. Fortunately, I'm sure in my decision that I'll always want at least somewhat stretched lobes, so if I shrink them from my short-term goal of 00ga, and they shrink to about 4ga, that'll be fine. I can wear tunnels, plugs, CBBs, CBRs, labret posts, whatever jewelry I wish at that size, and I'll be happy.

My dermal punching and future stretching shall be done responsibly.

Hmm... How about not?

I hate to be cliche and be forced to need to say that my tactics were irresponsible, because I'm ashamed of it, and you mostly all know the things of which I warn. But they were. They were some horrid tactics. My stretch to 6ga was the only responsibly done stretch of them all. If you can create even, smooth jewelry surfaces with plumber's tape, go ahead. If you have very stretchy lobes, and you stretch fine at a quicker pace, go ahead. The truth is, you probably can do both of those. It's a question of what's best, and what you will do. You can stretch at a quicker pace, if everything is perfect and gradual. You can make things smooth and perfect, if you take a lot of time on it. If you want undertake these methods, or other irresponsible methods, hey, it's your body. You can damage it however you wish. But you shouldn't. I've learned from my mistakes. Hopefully you can learn from those of others, and not need to learn them from your own.

Round two pending.