I've wanted to gauge my ears for years now, but didn't decide to actually start doing it until about two months ago. Unfortunately, at the time I decided I absolutely NEEDED to gauge my ears...I had no money and no plugs or tapers or anything of the sort.
At A Glance Author katlynn_rainbow Contact katlynn_rainbow@bme.anon When A week ago Artist self Location petaluma california After whining about it a lot and asking everyone I knew with gauged ears to borrow they're old stuff, all I ended up with was one claw that was either 10 or 8 gauge, I'm still not sure. I decided that was better than nothing and tried to use it. I could barely get the tip of it in though, which was probably like a 14 or 12. It hurt really bad and at first I thought I wasn't going to gauge my ears after all. It swelled a little, but by the next afternoon the swelling went down and I could push it all the way through. I was extremely proud of my itsy bitsy gauge. But still, that left my right ear at an 18, so i just took my old 12 or 14 gauge tongue ring (I'm not quite sure of that one either) and put it in there, so there wouldn't be as much of a difference between them, and it wouldn't hurt as much to get them even.
I walked around like that for a few weeks before I finally got some money and a chance to go to the mall. I went straight to Hot Topic and bought 8 gauge and 6 gauge tapered plugs. As soon as I bought them I went into the bathroom at the mall and tried putting them in. I could easily put a 6 in my left ear, but I couldn't even get an 8 into my right. Eventually, I shoved it through but it was still uneven.
Later that night, my friend gave me all her old gauges. Once I got both of my ears to 6s, which was maybe a week later, I used these 4 gauge red talons that she gave me. Actually, they may have been 2 gauge I'm not quite sure. I just know they hurt pretty bad.
I left those in for about a week and I went to the store and bought 2 gauge short talons and zero gauge short talons. The 2s went in very easily, so the next day I decided to try and put the zeroes in. That was not a very bright idea. No matter how hard i pushed them, they would not go through. Eventually, I gave up and put my 2s back in...even though they kept falling out since I'd stretched the hole.
I realized I needed to get some 0 gauge tapers so i went and bought some but those didn't go in very easily either. At first when I put them in, they wouldn't go more than halfway. So I had to walk around looking like I had antennae sticking out my head. After like 2 days I pushed them in, but when I woke up my ears were both really swollen. My left one was especially red and HUGE. I didn't know what to do, so I just kept putting ice on them. I was trying to clean my left ear and the taper just pushed itself out of my ear through the back. So I put my 0 gauge short talons in then. After that, the swelling slowly went down and it's been about 5 days and they are almost normal, although my left ears still feels bigger than my right. The annoying thing about them is that I think the hole is a little bigger than 0 right now, because when I sleep the talons fall out at least once a night and I have to just pray that I wake up before the holes start to shrink back down. They also come out whenever I take a show er or bath or go in a pool. Like, whenever there is water around it lubricates them and they come out. The O-rings I had wouldn't stay in place so now I have none and this poses a problem.
When I bought those 0 gauge tapers, I also bought some 7/16 tapers, as they didn't have any double zero ones. I realize now that that was a mistake. At the time, I thought that it would work out to just stop the taper in the middle and that would be a double zero. but i have no double zero plugs and I wouldn't know exactly where it would be on the taper anyway...plus I don't want to have big tapers sticking out for a week or more. And it hurts too much to try and shove a 7/16 taper into a 0 gauge hole...or maybe I'm just not tough enough. Eventually, I want to get up to 1/2, and I'm well on my way.