I was first exposed to lobe stretching while I was in high school. Two guys in my school, which was really small compared to a lot of other high schools in this country, had stretched lobes. One of the guys wore claws in his most of the time but always like to show off his stretched lobes by putting random objects in them during class, such as pens, weights, and French fries. I'd always love to watch him do this. I thought it was so cool. The other guy was one of my friends and had just begun to stretch his lobes. He would come to school with tapers in his lobes and whine about how much it was hurting. I never asked him about them though, I just admired.
At A Glance Author Tiffani Contact Tiffani@bme.anon When N/A Artist me Studio my bathroom Location Bay Area, CA Even though I admired them, I never even considered stretching my own lobes (which were pierced using a gun when I was an infant because my mom didn't think dressing me in pink clothes was enough to prove to people I was a girl). I lived a sheltered life in a small refinery town in the Bay Area. I hardly ever ventured out of my town to experience what was going in nearby cities such as Berkeley and San Francisco. I was aware of body modification (my mom even asked me if I wanted to get my belly button pierced when her and my sister got theirs together; I declined, however). I was very shy and introverted and never wanted to draw attention to myself.
That all changed when I got my license, got a job, and started college. I was on my own, somewhat (I still live at home). But I realized my life and my body was my own and I could do what I want. My outlook on the world had also changed during this time and I had become increasingly pissed off at "the general public" because of recent developments in the country. So I was trying to find some way to set myself apart from the population that I had come to despise.
Now I had no idea how to properly stretch piercings and I never thought of researching online. I just figured I could use random household objects, which would weird people out more when they saw them in my ear. I had the basic "Claire's gauge (about 18 ga.). I began by putting a paperclip in my left ear (probably somewhere around 16 ga.). Every couple of weeks, I would put another paper clip in my left ear (why I only started out stretching my left ear, I have no idea). Once I got about 4 paper clips in my ear, I realized that I couldn't put more because they'd be sticking out every which way and the ones I had in my ear were already bothering me. So I got a Q-tip and pulled off the cotton on both ends. I cut the plastic stick down to about an inch in length and stuck it in my ear. After about a month of that, I realized ink cartridges in pens could also be used. So I found one that was slightly larger than the Q-tip, cut that down to size, and stuck it into my ear. By now, my left ear was at about an 8 gauge and my right ear was still at the standard 18 gauge.
I had started looking online at ear stretching (although I hadn't come across BME yet) and discovered that buying plugs would be a lot better for my ear. I also wanted both of my ears to match. I was browsing Hot Topic's website, which was the only place I knew to buy body jewelry at the time (proceed to roll your eyes). I found that the $20 per pack of 3 pairs of one size jewelry was stupid to buy since I only needed one pair, so I never bought anything but I continued to browse every few days. One day, I came across a pack of 14ga, 12ga, and 10ga steel plugs and a pack of 8ga, 6ga, and 4ga steel plugs for $15 per pack. So I bought those off the Internet and waited for them to reach my mailbox.
When the plugs got to my door, I quickly opened the package. I put the 8, 6, 4 ga pack away in my drawer because I knew I wouldn't be using those for a while. I opened the 14, 12, 10 ga pack. Please refrain from laughing, as I didn't exactly know the concept of gauges at this time, except the fact that it probably wasn't wise to skip sizes. When I saw all 3 pairs I realized that they were wimpy and basically thought the 14s and 12s were almost the same size. So I just put the 12s in. Nothing, no pain, no resistance, nothing. I wondered why I hadn't done this earlier; it was so easy. That's what I thought then. It never once dawned on me that my ears were just naturally stretched to that size over the period of the 17 to 18 years since they had been pierced. That day the plug in my left ear kept falling out and I ended up losing it. So I put the 10ga in that ear. After a couple of days that one kept falling out since I lost the o-ring on the back so I just put the 8ga in which was what size my use of Q-tips and pen ink cartridges had stretched that ear to. Whenever the plug in my right ear started getting loose, I'd go one size up until they were both at 8ga.
By the time my right ear made it to 8, the 8ga plug in my left ear kept falling out everywhere. So I tried to stretch that ear to a 6ga by just trying to shove it in. I didn't know at that time about tapers. Back in high school, when I saw the tapers in my friend's ears I just thought they were a different style of jewelry. I didn't know that they were supposed to be used to stretch to the next size. So since the 6ga wasn't going in, I just figured my ear wasn't ready yet so every week I'd try the dead stretch again (which always failed). During this time, it dawned on me that there was something I didn't know so I started researching online. I discovered BME as well as some other sites that had tips and tricks on how to successfully stretching your ears (and keeping 'em healthy). I discovered a website that sold a set of 6, 4, 2, and 0ga tapers for a really low price. When I finally had money (I was jobless at the time), I bought them. They came in record time (I ordered them on a Monday night, they came on Thursday).
A few weeks before this, I had lost the 8ga plug out of my left ear so I took the other 8 out of my right and put it in my left. I was wearing the 10ga in my right ear. So I took the jewelry out of my left ear, washed the 6ga taper, lubed it up, and slowly pushed it through my left ear. I made it to the end with just a slight burning sensation and almost no resistance. Following through with the plug was difficult. I tried for half an hour but couldn't do it so I just put the o-rings on the taper and went to watch the Simpsons. After the show was over, I went back into my bathroom and successfully got the plug in. Now it was time for my right ear. I cleaned the taper again and took the plug out of my right ear. For some reason, I thought that even though I stretched it to 8ga but had the 10ga plug in it for almost a month, it was still an 8ga. I tried the taper but it only made it halfway so I waited two hours and tried again. Still didn't work. I put the 8ga plug in my ear and waited a week.
Success. When I tried it again a week later, I got the 6ga taper through my right ear after some shoving and twisting. It was definitely harder than my left ear but the 6ga plug was in finally.
Three days later, I took both of the plugs out to clean them. I washed them with soap, rinsed, dried, lubed and the plug was back in my left ear. I did the same for the right: washed, rinsed, dried, lubed, and...oops, it's not going in. I shoved, cursed, shoved some more and pop, it's in. But ouch, it hurt. Why I didn't use the taper again, I don't know. I wasn't thinking. For the next couple of days my ear was sore but I thought nothing of it. I spent the night at my boyfriend's house and when I woke up in the morning, I noticed the o-ring fell off the back of the plug in my right ear. I felt my ear and noticed it was really swollen. I must have slept on it. When I got home, I took the plug out to inspect my ear and it started bleeding. I sighed because I knew I had to downsize. However, I didn't know how much you're supposed to downsize after something like this happens so just put a 14ga CBR in my ear. After some research, I discovered that I didn't need to downsize so much but oh well, at least it'll heal.
After washing my right ear every day and doing sea salt soaks every once in a while, my ear was back to normal. I put the 12ga plug in my ear, which wasn't hard at all because my ear hadn't gone all the way down to a 14. The next day the 12 was loose so I put in the 10ga plug with no problems or resistance at all.
And that is the present state of my ears. I plan on stretching both of my ears up to ½" but I think that after being at that size for a few months, I'll want to go bigger. It's addicting. When you first get to the next size, you think it's so much bigger and cooler but after about a week you'll want to go bigger. At the beginning of my experience, I had no idea at all how to properly stretch a piercing. Thanks to many modification websites, I have been educated and hopefully I'll have nice thick, healthy lobes instead of the rubber band looking ones I occasionally see on some people. Also, when I first started stretching I did it because I wanted to piss people off, including my mother. However, now I feel that stretching is a personal experience you shares with your body that teaches you to be patient and to respect your one and only body.