First off, I would like to stress that I do not support scalpelling due to laziness. I had to redirect my lobes due to thinning, and am not proud of it. The thinning was my fault from not paying close enough attention to how they were healing from years before when I was a bit more ignorant, and the scalpelling was how I paid for it. I recommend trying to find other alternatives, such as down sizing and up sizing to thicken, doing massages with vitamin e, emu oil, or lotion. These things matter.
At A Glance Author Dreadboy Contact dreadboybug@hotmail.com IAM Dreadboy When A year ago Artist James Studio Art and Soul Location Kalamazoo, MI I decided that I had to redirect my lobes if I wanted to stretch any larger than an inch, so I started talking to James. He is one of the only people in Kalamazoo that I would ever trust to touch my body with anything sharp. I made a deal with him, if I supplied the equipment, he would do it for free. So I jumped onto bmeshop and ordered the scalpels, and some how managed to get my hands on a 1 1/4 inch taper. I used a pair of pyrex single flared eyelets that i had from the short lived body jewelry retail business I had. The rest of the equipment I already had from being a piercist. Originally we were going to do it at the shop he worked for, but I decided that I wanted to do it at home. So we set up in my bathtub (if you ever get scalpelled, you will understand how much it bleeds, or go to my page and look for the pics) and I jumped in. First we marked from 7/8ths to 1 1/4. My left ear was a little more complicated because we had a tattoo that we had to work around too, and I didnt want to worry about stretching into it in the future. I took about 15 minutes to breath and calm down, did a little bit of meditating, then we began.
The forceps we used were convienently 3/8ths of an inch, so we used them almost as a stencil. I could feel the pain running down my spine immediatly. The cutting of my left lobe took about 4 minutes, then we tapered. This was probably the most painful part, and I could feel how cold the metal was as it ran through. When we finished, i took a 15 minute break so my heart would calm down. Then I hopped back in the tub. My right lobe was alot more difficult. After the scalpelling, we ran the taper through. Only this time the jewelry fell off. So we had to run it through again. And again the jewelry fell off. Third time was a charm, but the lip off the jewelry caught. I didnt feel like running it through again, so I had him push it through anyway.
They looked great. I was very pleased with how they came. Perfect. It took about 5 minutes, then I got really woozy. I was going into shock. So my friend ran off and got me a glass of sugar water,and I sat down for about 30 minutes. After that, the only problem I had was sleeping. I didnt want to sleep on my lobes, even though they didnt hurt. I had to wash all of my pillow cases that night though.
Taking care of them was easy. Provon was my best friend, and I had to cut my dreadies off. To me that was the hardest part of the whole ordeal. I did that just as a safety precaution, I didnt want to have to worry about the bacteria. It took approximately 2 months for them to fully heal. I had a little bit of a problem when I thought they were fully healed, and I changed into some wooden plugs. My lobes ended up getting infected, and I had to battle that for about 2 weeks. Which included me having to take out the jewelry to properly clean them. Even though i scalpelled, and havent forced any jewelry in, I still got a bit of scar tissue build up. Mainly from the pressure of the jewelry.
As I stated before, try to find some other alternative. Once you scalpel, it is over. For me I feel like I cheated myself, but I understand that I had to. If you must, try to get it done early, and small. Once you have redirected the weak point, your lobes will continue to stretch there. If your lobes look like spaghetti, then either stop or look into redirecting.
Also, make sure your artist is fully capable. This isnt just a piercing. If someone is inexperienced, you risk some long term damage, or even losing your lobes. Well, I hope that this helps some of you, and if you have any questions, feel free to go to my page or email me.