At A Glance
Author	anonymous
Contact	anonymous@bme.anon
When	A year ago

I had heard of ear stretching but I wasn't familiar with it. To me it seemed something far-fetched that I'd never even consider. I had never seen a stretched lobe in person and was clueless as to why anyone would want them done.

When I bought my first pair of plugs, I didn't even know what they were. I had just bought them on impulse because they looked nice. I didn't know how to get them in, or what you would use to even stretch the holes.

I started off with standard sized 'ear holes', about 12g. At first, I wasn't sure how I was going to get 4g. plugs into the holes.

I tried stretching them by inserting several pairs of earrings at once, but it didn't even come close to getting them as big as I needed. I then moved on to using other objects, like toothpicks and pen tips to try to stretch the hole. This did basically nothing but make them sore.

So, I gave up for a while. I then returned to the store some time later and bought an 6g. taper. I didn't know exactly what to do with it and I had no knowledge of the dangers of stretching too quickly.

At first, I couldn't even get the tip of the taper into the hole but with some persistence I managed to get it through.

I had only pushed it in a little ways when I realized how painful this was going to be. I didn't know that stretching was supposed to be done gradually and that going from 12g to 6g in one step was definitely not smart.

But, determined as I am I kept pushing, or at least trying to. I realized quickly that this wasn't going to work so easily, so I took the taper out of my now very sore ear. I left it alone to heal up for a couple days and searched google some tips for easing the transition.

My next attempt was much more successful. I waited until just after I got out of the shower when the skin is easier to stretch. I also coated the taper in antibacterial ointment, which acted both as a lubricant and assured I'd be safer from infection, which I tend to be prone to.

I started on the right ear this time, and pushed the taper in very slowly. After about 20 minutes I had it more than half way through. I decided this was far enough for now and put the rings on so it would be secured.

About two days later, I pushed the taper the rest of the way through. It stung more this time than it had before so I quickly put the rings back on and left it alone for another two days.

Now it was the fun part, getting the plug in. I knew the taper was considerably smaller than the plugs, but after coming this far I wasn't about to give up.

I took the top ring off the taper and tried to slip the plug in by pushing the taper out with it. This didn't work my first couple of attempts so I decided to lubricate the plug with antibacterial ointment as well.

This worked considerably better, and somehow I managed to get a 4g. plug in using an 8g. taper. I definitely wouldn't recommend that anyone else try it, but I managed to do so without any major problems.

The left ear was considerably easier than the right ear for whatever reason. It took me less time to do as well because it was less sore, therefore needed less time to heal.

Had I researched ear stretching beforehand, I would have realized that any bleeding or pain during stretching isn't normal, but I also wouldn't have been stretching my ears so quickly.

I ended up taking my plugs out several months later, and the holes shrunk to about 8g. but nowhere near small enough to put normal earrings back in. So I decided to put the plugs back in.

The second time stretching them was actually much more painful. They also bled much more and we're sore for much longer. Looking back on it I'm lucky I didn't encounter any serious problems or have longlasting effects, such as "blowing out" my ears from stretching much too fast.

Buildup of dead skin cells on the plugs, or "ear cheese" was a bit worse the second time around, however. When I used plastic plugs it was really bad and they had to be thoroughly cleaned off every day, but since switching to titanium the problem is much milder for some reason.

Overall, I'm happy with my decision and while it would have been nice to have been more educated beforehand, I'm glad I chose to stretch my ears.