At A Glance Author shawn Contact shawn@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist myself Studio my bedroom Location johnstown,pa Well first off I would like to say that what I did was not only stupid it was very painful. And I do not recommend stretching the same way I did. My cartilage is pretty much perfect except for the keloid on the back of my ear. But I got lucky many people may not be so fortunate.
Okay my adventure began about six months ago I had always loved piercing and knew I wanted to do some piercing in my ears. I decided to do my cartilage first this was of course self-done with the aid of an upholstery needle and a pair of needle nose pliers to drive it through. This procedure took me about fifteen minutes to pierce it and get a stud through it. I ran into a lot of complications with my cartilage because of the backing of the stud. I finally had to buy a ring so my cartilage could swell and heal properly.
After a couple weeks with it done I also did both my lobes twice and I then stretched them to a ten gauge. I then thought that my cartilage would look good stretched so I took a plug I had I went into the bathroom. While I got a bath I took a toothpick I had and pushed it through the hole this hurt extremely and when I finally got it through I looked in the mirror and I was covered in blood. I then felt the back of my cartilage and pulled off this large piece of skin tissue. And as I started to put the plug in I could see that the back of my cartilage had actually ripped toward the inside luckily or else I would have lost the piercing all together. So I then put back in the sixteen-gauge ring and let me my ear heal.
About a couple weeks later I bought a twelve-gauge ring and used a toothpick once again this time a lot slower and I finally got the new ring in I looked at the back of my ear and to my joy it had not ripped my I had formed a large keloid.
I actually tried to pop the keloid because I thought it was filled with some kind of fluid like a blister well when I did that all I got was blood. To my surprise after my ear started to heal the keloid shrank.
I knew I wanted to go bigger so I took a q-tip and cut it to a good length and pushed it through the hole with no pain. I put some o-rings on it and was quite pleases especially cause you could see through the q-tip.
Then some stories I had written got into the hands of some of my teachers and I got put into the hospital for being suicidal and depressed. And while I was in there they made me take out my body jewelry. I spent four days in there and in that time all my piercings downsized considerably. So when I finally got home I went straight to the bathroom with toothpicks in hand. It took me well over an hour and a half to get all my piercings back to their former gauges. The only good thing to come out of that experience was I met my now girlfriend.
After that was done I went out and bought a ten-gauge ring for my cartilage, I had this in until about four days ago and then while I was out shopping with my girlfriend I saw an eight gauge and I just had to buy it. So I got home later and cleaned the ring and pushed it through with a bit of pain. But its in and I am quite satisfied. I think I am going to stay at an right for now but I know I want to get my conches dermal punched to a two-gauge and I want to get my first lobe piercings to at least a 00 and my second lobe piercings to a two-gauge. I might add that my girlfriend hates the idea of me stretching my ears and it really grosses her out when I take out my cartilage ring and have her look through the hole.
I would definitely recommend stretching your cartilage but if you do get it done professionally it will be much safer and probably less painful. Not only is it safer it will defiantly be better looking while from the front my piercing looks perfectly healed when you look at the back I have large keloid that is very ugly. I also recommend letting your ear heal after a stretch this is the one thing I did right because if you rush it you are only messing up your piercing more.