I have 0 gauge plugs now at 15, but it was quite the journey. It all started about 2 years ago in the 8th grade.
At A Glance Author Carl Contact rise-of-brutality@hotmail.com When Two years ago Artist Me Studio my house Location Milwaukee
I had pierced my ears myself about 6 months before stretching and at the time, only intended to wear basic sized jewelry but I always thought Chris Barnes' plugs looked cool so that was my main inspiration.
I bought my first taper at hot topic for a ridiculous amount of money, ($18) if you think about how cheap they can be found on the internet. But I bought an 6g taper not knowing how big of a stretch that would be, having roughly an 18g piercing.
The next day I decided it was time to stretch. At the time I didn't have internet access or know anyone with stretched anything. So i took the taper, did not numb my ear at all or use any kind of lube(dumbest thing I could have done) and I stuck the taper in, like a millimeter every hour it hurt like a motherfocker and took a long time, but there was very little bleeding.
Seeing how I was so inexperienced with the whole stretching thing , I didn't buy plugs. I walked around with the tapers in my ears for about a week . The taper was steel so it looked like I had a nail in my ear so I got a lot of comments. examples, "You a nasty motherfucka" and "Why you got a nail in yo ear?" I finally got some plugs but my choice in jewelry was a bad one.
I bought some plastic hoop style plugs that did not stay in very well at all. The plastic wore out after about three days so they fell off a lot. One night when i was sleeping they fell out and closed up by the time I woke up and the plugs had fallen into my couch. I was fucking pissed. All that work, money and pain...I left my ears closed for a few months.
During my second stretch I was a bit more informed. I knew to use lube this time. I went to spencers gifts and bought two 4g curved acrylic tapers for $10. I got home and remembering the pain from before, used some xylocaine and surgical lube. it went in fairly easily with no pain (because of the xylocaine of course). This stretch didn't last very long. Maybe a week or two. The tapers didn't have o-rings and fell out when I was on the Phone and I couldn't find them.I was pretty mad but there wasn't much I could do but wait until i had more money.
So about a year later I decided to stretch again. I stretched straight to a 4g with no problems. the next day I was able to move the taper around but the problem was, I only had one taper, and with the little money I had,(none) i couldn't afford plugs. I was quite desperate so in my left ear i put in an S-hook that I cleaned with peroxide(stupid, I know) while i stretched the other. I sat in my house like that for a week until i could get plugs. Finally I got some and had them for about a week. I knew I wanted to go bigger so i ordered a 0g taper from ebay for only $2.00. I figured this would be an easy stretch since I had gone from 18 to 6 before but it was worse. It bleed more, hurt for a longer time and it got really swollen. But its been two weeks since them and its healed nicely.
Even the people I wouldn't expect to think body mods are cool complement me but are always grossed out when I take my plugs out and they can see through my ear. Even though I get a lot of dirty looks on the bus and get called crazy all the time, I still love my plugs.Im not the only person at my school with stretched lobes, but I was the first.
The only issue I have had is that since I have stretched to 0g, i haven't slept the night through. Every night since that stretch, I wake up at like two or three in the morning because either my o-ring fell off or my plug came out
After reading all these things about stretching I realize that I made a lot of mistakes(the last stretch being done on an un-healed fistula). I didn't even know what a blow out was until a month ago. But I got through it all with no problems.
The most important thing is to keep the stretch and tools used clean. I believe that that is what made my dangerous stretches so successful.
But I do NOT at all recommend stretching as quick as I did.
I've already bought the items needed to go to 7/16". I may go up to a half inch but not until much later.