Dear reader, in this experience I will tell you the experiences I made when stretching my right lobe to 12mm. The whole stretching thing began, when I stretched my girlfriends earlobes – that's when I decided that I wanted stretched lobes myself. So now, I will chronologically tell you how things went:
At A Glance Author der_narr Contact der_narr@bme.anon IAM der_narr When A year ago Artist Pierced by Toby, stretched by me Studio Wildcat / @ home Location Essen/Duisburg - Germany The lobe was pierced by Toby from Wildcat in Essen / Germany in September 2003. This piercing was done at 1.6mm.
Here's how this went:
Having had my birthday some weeks prior to this date my friends had spent some money on a gift voucher from my piercing studio, so I took that ticket to Wildcat and spent it on my lobe. After filling out the paperwork I went down the stairs to Toby's piercing rooms. Toby had before pierced my Septum, so I knew him already. (You can also read my experience on that piercing on bme.) Toby asked me to sit down on the bench and asked what ring size I wanted for the first time, and I asked him to put in a labret stud with a 4mm bead on front. After little complaining about how much more that piece of jewellery would cost he okayed and prepared everything that was necessary for my piercing. After disinfecting my lobe, he marked the spot where he would pierce. This point was a little bit closer to the cartilage so that there would be more skin below to make stretching easier.
Once the clamps were put on, I felt a sudden sharp pinch, followed by the labret stud and after screwing on the bead I was ready to go – now without having talked about aftercare of course...
I kept that piece in my ear for about two months, then I decided it were time to slowly start stretching as I had not had any more crusties or problems with my ear at that date for a longer period. Stretching up to 2mm was very easy, as I just shoved a 2mm ball closure ring through my ear to stretch it, then inserting a circular barbell which again was worn for almost 4 weeks.
By constant playing and not letting my fingers off that ring the hole had stretched over the weeks so that I could easily slide in a 2.4mm circular barbell. This again was worn for two weeks.
The next step – going up to 3.2mm – should be one of the most complicated to take for me. Until then it had always been quite easily done by just pushing through bigger rings, but this time this was impossible for me. So I got a claw made from glass and pushed it through my lobe, which hurt like a b*tch, but then I was able to insert my 3.2mm bar closure ring.
>From that gauge on stretching became quite easy again. For stretching up to 4mm I used the same taper as before, just this time pushing it through on it's whole length. I kept it in my ear for some days, on which my ear reacted quite aggressively and turned red, so I removed the taper and changed for my so loved PMMA plugs, about which you will hear more in this experience (They are extremely cheap – like 6€ per plug).
The step up to 5mm was a very pleasant one, as my girlfriend possessed an enlarging crescent with which stretching was extremely easy. Once again I wore a plug made from PMMA.
Stretching to 6mm was – in the beginning – a little harder, but after a hot shower and with some lube this task was taken. Unluckily my flatmate hit my ear on a following day when we were at a Billy Talent show in Cologne, so I had to decide, whether I would downsize to 5mm again or quickly stretch up to 7mm. I decided for stretching even farther, which was not the best idea and my lobe reacted by producing puzz and itching for some time. Having worn that 7mm plug for several weeks, giving my ear lots of time to calm down etc, I easily slid in the 8mm plug I had bought at "Kailito's Way" in Duisburg.
>From then on, stretching went smooth as putting butter on a slice of bread, as a friend of mine had bought tapered insertion pins for 9 and 10mm – lucky me. So I soon had my ears stretched to 10mm. Again resting for some weeks, I decided I would keep on stretching my lobe and after some weeks of consideration if this were right I bought an 11mm PMMA plug and put it into my lobe. So I was just one more millimetre away from my girlfriends lobe size, so that I would have a broad choice of jewellery from her stuff. So little later my lobe was at 12mm – my goal had once again been reached.
By the time me lobe had unfortunately thinned out quite much on the lower side so that I decided to let my ear thicken up a little and removed my 12mm plugs from my ears and went back to 9mm.
My advice to anybody stretching his or her lobes is to listen to your body and to use materials that do not cause trouble to human ears. As you can read, I at one time stretched too fast and directly my lobe caused me some trouble à so you better take little steps and stretch at an easy speed.
I hope you had fun reading my experience,
Alex