I've been stretching my ears on and off for the past five years. Originally, I went from 14 gauge to 4 gauge in one jump. Bad idea. I was in a lot of pain for a while and wrecked my lobes. I jumped between 6 gauge and 0 gauge for a while and put 4 gauge tunnels in for work. I would take them out, leave them out, stretch again and basically treated my ears like shit.
At A Glance Author San Contact San@bme.anon IAM BlueStar When It just happened Eventually I had a job where I could have larger earlobes. I had been making plugs out of plastic clothes hangers, about 8mm and wearing those, since, at the time, one acrylic plug cost about $25. Body jewellery has definitely downed in its price. I eventually had nice 2 gauge acrylic captive bead rings in my lobes and one snapped at a party, so I used the clothes hangers until I got proper jewellery.
I wanted my lobes scalpelled, but I was 15, going on 16 and couldn't find any proper jewellery. At this time, I was at 4 gauge and I wanted to be at 00 gauge. I eventually just stretched to 00 gauge. I had my earlobes, with their clotheshanger plugs, wrapped in tape, and I couldn't get the damn double flared stainless steel tunnels in to save my life.
I had my piercer, Lee, at the time taper. The taper was marked wrong, it said "000ga", but it wasn't, it was really 00 gauge. I thought I had 000 gauge earlobes for a while, which was bad when I went up some more. The stretching tore like hell and I bled for a while and it just plain sucked.
Eventually I went up to 7/16". I ordered the bullet plugs from Ebay and waited until they arrived at my mothers work, because they had an American address. When I got them I shoved them in and they looked fine. They were white, so I could put stickers on them and stuff. I stretched to half inch later on, and then downsized.
I continued the stretch, downsize, stretch for over a year. I eventually wore half inch Kaos tunnels in them. I never had a problem with Kaos tunnels, because I never stretched with them. My ears were more than ready for the half inch tunnels, I had been wrapping 00 gauge plugs with tape for ages. I used electrical tape. My earlobes aren't that picky.
Of course, I started swimming and lost my damn plugs. So I stopped wearing any jewellery and was disappointed to know that the largest I could get in my lobe was an uncomfortable 00 gauge. I had these horrible huge red acrylic 00 gauge captive bead rings I bought for unknown reasons one night, so I wore those. You could see light through them, so I put the Kaos in.
This is when I realized that Kaos is BAD to stretch with!
It burned for hours and my ears were a mess the next day. I took the plugs out, while cursing and didn't wear jewellery. I ordered hemostats to work on my tongue split and realized... clamp and cut my earlobes, use my 5/8" tapers and get my new 5/8" black and white star plugs in, made out of bone.
So I did it. I clamed my left earlobe after marking it. I disinfected it and washed my hands but didn't wear gloves for the clamping. I turned on the TV and watched for a bit. The first "click" was the worst. It burned really badly, so I concentrated on TV. After a bit I clicked down again. Not as bad as the first time. After a half hour I had it clicked all the way down and decided to go cut.
I used surgical scissors over a scalpel. I tried with a scalpel and decided the scissors worked better. I cut out the paper thin tissue and then tapered up to 5/8" and cleaned up. There was very little blood. My ear burned for a bit, so I waited to do the second. I soothed it with lavender and warm water.
I started clamping my right ear, but it wasn't going the way I wanted it to. It hurt a hell of a lot more and I eventually had it all the way down. When I took the hemostats off I thought the tissue fell off with them, but no such luck. I had more problems with this one. I cut it, and it bled a bit more. Not a lot, easy enough to deal with. (Oh, note, when I cut, I was wearing gloves.) I finally got the damn taper in and soaked my head in the bathtub for a while.
After a couple of days I switched to my goal tunnels, my bone stars. I plan on stretching to about an inch.
I don't suggest doing this yourself at all! Take every precaution!