At A Glance
Author	Will
Contact	Will@bme.anon
When	A week ago

My Disclaimer:

This is my experience of how I stretched my cartilage. How I did it is recorded in the "experience" below, and it's all true. That said, I stretched my cartilage with not much knowledge, little experience, and even less patience. If I made mistakes, and I'm sure that I did stretch faster than what is recommended pretty much across the board, please bear with me. Don't take this writing as instructions, that's all.

This experience I wrote both during and after I started stretching my cartilage. It's pretty long and it's pretty dry, but I guess I got across all the information I wanted too.

My helix/upper ear cartilage piercing was pierced (with a needle rather than a gun if it's relevant), and with a 1.2mm titanium CBR about a year and a half ago. Since then it's been through some tough times, removed for school once or twice a week after it healed, but it's never given me any great trouble. Once I was confident it was well healed, I played around with different jewelry in different sizes. I'm sure it had CBR's ranging from about 1mm to 2mm being worn in it irregularly, but it stayed, usually, at about 1.6mm. This isn't a big deal, what I mean is, it doesn't really affect this experience very much, but I just want to leave a clear record.

About eight months, I wore two 1.6mm rings in this particular piercing for a week (in the same hole). It formed a lot of crust, and was quite uncomfortable. I purchased a 2.8mm acrylic claw, and stuck it in, with some pressure, into the hole the rings left. This gave me a lot of trouble. It wasn't really a stretch I was had thought about, nor was it one that I was ready for. I wore the claw for a few days, where it was very uncomfortable. Compounding the problem was the fact that the jewelry wasn't particularly suited to the piercing, it kept trying to fall out.

Removing the jewelry didn't give me any trouble. My ear was back to normal within a week, normal meaning that I wore a 1.6mm ring in the piercing and it wasn't particularly sore or anything. That's the way it stayed until about three months ago.

This is where I started stretching my cartilage seriously, as in; it wasn't just a spur of the moment act, like it was above. While stretching my labret, I had some left over, in between sized jewelry. I had known that I probably could stretch my cartilage if I took it slow, and the jewelry was just there waiting, so I decided to go for it. First jewelry I wore when I was seriously stretching my cartilage was a 2.4mm ext. threaded labret stud, which went in without any resistance. I didn't use a taper, I didn't really need to, and I just lubed it in. Whenever I mention stretching in this experience, I always used KY Jelly as lubricant. There was some discomfort, for a few days, but it was no great stress.

My next stretch was about a week, or a week and a half after that. The jewelry was a 3mm stainless steel plug, with O-rings, and I tapered and lubed it in without much difficulty. It was a little painful, and it was sore for a while (from memory, it took about a week until it was fine to towel-dry my hair without thinking about the piercing). It looked really good too, which made me pretty happy about what I was doing, and the jewelry was left in the piercing for the next two weeks.

So, two weeks later, I went out and bought a pair of mystery metal knitting needles (3.5 mm) cut one off above the tapered end, secured it with o-rings and wore that as jewelry for about another two weeks. It wasn't a difficult stretch, with the lube and one quick push, I barely noticed any discomfort

Next, I tapered and lubed from 3.5mm to 4mm. It was a similar experience to above. The taper didn't have too much resistance, but any larger stretching in that sitting would have been a big mistake, in my opinion. The 4mm didn't take that long to feel O.K again, and after a week I found a 4.8mm taper, and a single flare 4.8mm tunnel, I lubed it up and slid the taper in. It was pretty dumb, I guess, it was too quick a stretch, it was really, really sore. I got the tunnel in but I couldn't deal with the constant, throbbing discomfort. The slow throbbing discomfort is the kind of pain that I got when I stretched cartilage too fast. It's the kind of discomfort that makes you feel tired and sick, it's like a dull toothache or something, I found it wasn't really confined to my ear, but my whole head. I guess that's what turns a lot of people off cartilage stretching.

So my ear hurt. I woke up in the morning the day after, swore, and took the tunnel out (ouch). To go into a little more detail, taking the tunnel out really, really hurt. It didn't want to come out mainly because of the notch for the o-ring that had to pulled through the hole. Ouch. So I took the tunnel out, and put a 4mm plug back in, lucky that it had a tapered end, I wouldn't have had the willpower to jam it straight in. So I gritted my teeth and put it back in. My ear was sore for a few days, and tender and bruised feeling for the rest of the week. The whole time it looked a little red, actually really red for the first day, but it wasn't really noticeable for more than the first two days.

A week after that failed last stretch; my ear was almost doing fine. I gave it another two or three days to get over the soreness, and then tapered and lubed it (the 4.8mm taper) in again, and used the tunnel again. This time it didn't hurt nearly as much, there was some soreness for a few days but it was nothing new, and it was also a lot less than I expected. I'm not exactly sure of how large the tunnel and the taper were. I bought them from a shop, and though the staff said 4.5mm, the same jewelry in a different shop said 4.8mm.

The tunnel I wore in my ear for about four weeks. I hadn't taken it any bigger for any other reason than that I didn't have a taper. I was going to buy a 6mm taper, so I could wear a 6mm top hat style tunnel that I bought a year or two ago when I was stretching my lobes. I wasn't entirely convinced I could stretch this much, and I expected it to go in halfway, I would have gone and bought a 5.5mm knitting needle and worn that for a few days, to ease the stretch a bit. However, the 6mm knitting needle just slid into my ear with a bit of lube, and the tunnel went in without any complications. It wasn't a tough stretch, I couldn't really believe it. But, unfortunately, it wasn't super in the long run; a couple of days later after sleeping on that side my ear was swollen and sore. Not badly swollen, not noticeably even, but I wasn't feeling too well at the time so I swapped back down to the 4.5mm tunnel.

Another two weeks later I tapered back up to 6mm and wore a 6mm tunnel. This time it was even easier than the last, I have to admit there was a little pinch of pain getting the taper in, but everything felt really nice a natural after a couple of minutes. Since then it's been three weeks and it's pretty good. I bought a 6mm black bone pincher type piece of jewelry (the type that's not uncommon to see in septum's), but unfortunately it wasn't quite 6mm exactly, it was more like a 6x8mm oval, I guess I'll have to stick with steel and other materials that are exactly the size I want, uneven shapes aren't too comfortable.

I do plan to stretch my cartilage further, though I'm not sure exactly how far. I do know from experience it's best to only stretch in 1mm (or less) increments. I have met kids that stretched their cartilage in big 2mm jumps(and bigger, I met a kid that had tapered his helix from a normal ring size to 4mm in one sitting, damn); all I can think is that I would have had trouble actually physically getting the taper in! The highlight for me is how it looks. It feels so strange to think that I've managed to permanently change my body from the way it was. It feels pretty strange too, As far as people commenting, they're not so bad I think mainly because I have had longer hair for a long time and it's hard too see until now when I just had my hair cut. Most people like my piercings, I think, and my stretched helix doesn't really get commented on, maybe because my ear lobes are bigger. Actually I think it's my one piercing that I like way more than others like/dislike. So I guess this is the end of my experience.