| At A Glance | |
| Author | Caroline June |
| Contact | punkposs101@hotmail.com |
| IAM | Caroline June |
| When | Three months ago |
| Artist | Myself |
| Studio | My house |
| Location | Leicester, UK |
I'm an absolutely awful example of piercing aftercare and stretching so whilst this will no doubt be a rambling and in depth description of my conch stretching and how successful I have been in it, it should in no way be copied. I'm hoping that you can learn from my mistakes and successes.
I don't know what drew me to the idea of stretching my conch but I knew I liked it. The amount of photos on various peoples IAM pages of them getting various bits of skin punched out of them never really appealed to me. I knew that this was the safest and easiest way of getting from a) a tiny hole in my conch to b) a big hole in my conch but I still never liked the idea. It seemed too permanent and too... easy.
At the beginning of November 2006 I put a diary on my IAM page asking if anyone had any tips on cartilage stretching and conch stretching in particular. I got half of the people who replied saying that I should just get it punched and the other half using the word 'slow' and excessive amount of exclamation marks. Amongst these people were some of the rather heavily modified people on IAM and so I figured that there opinion was rather valid. There's only so much you can read about without it becoming so general that it becomes worthless. I wanted to ask real people for real opinions and I was enthusiastic with the outcome.
It came to the evening of November 14th and I decided that I'd see if I could fit a 14g/1.6mm labret stud into my conch. I'd had my conch at 16g/1.2mm for just shy of a whole year and so I figured that this would be a good a time as any. I unscrewed the ball on the labret stud that was in my conch and then unscrewed the ball on the bigger bar I had waiting to go. I felt the back of my ear for the hole and lined it up with the end of the labret stud. I put some slight pressure on it and within a couple of seconds it was in my ear. That was incredibly easy, I thought to myself. I came to the conclusion that it was because of a long time of playing around and tugging lightly on the piercing that had caused it to loosen up and become a very easy stretch. I screwed the ball onto the piercing and admired my handiwork and just how easily I had managed to stretch my conch up.
A couple of days later, I woke up with a great soreness on my right ear. I noticed that the skin on my ear was slightly darker than it should be and that it was my conch that was making it sore. I noticed a little bit of hypertrophic scarring and it was sore to the touch. I've experienced this type of pain in my ears before, especially with my troublesome helix and I knew that with the right amount of TLC I'd be as right as rain in no time. Just a few days later the scarring had gone down and I had a happy little 14g conch.
The stretch up to 12g was by far the least successful of all of my stretches. After a few weeks of comfortably wearing a 14g labret stud, I figured that since I had a 12g ring at my disposal I might as well put it in. Now the stretch itself wasn't too bad – again I went from the back as my conch is pierced slightly diagonally and it's simpler to put jewellery in from the back – but after a few hours my ear started smarting. I woke up the next morning to find there was some serious hypertrophic scarring going on. I thought it wouldn't be too bad as it went down last time but I felt disheartened nonetheless. Me being me, I prodded it. Me being me, I made it bleed. It looked horrible for a few days but after a while it managed to be relatively comfortable again. I decided that I'd leave it a bit longer until I stretch again. I wasn't quite sure why the small stretches were being so awkward but I remember how tough it was to stretch my lobes in the smaller stages so it was pretty logical
However, after a few weeks I got the itch to stretch again so I looked in the IAM: Jewellery Exchange Forum and managed to buy some tiny acrylic plugs and when they arrived, I was eager to stretch again. I had bought a 12g plug so I wore that instead of the big ring for a while and then eventually decided to take it up to 10g. The same thing happened with this stretch as it did the last one, the hypertrophic scarring just blew up – my friend clamping his hands over my ears probably didn't help, but still – but like the other times, it went down after a week or so. The stretch to 3mm (just shy of 8g) was very uneventful but tricky all the same. The o-rings I had for the plug were slightly too big so it fell out a fair few times. Luckily I think the longest it ever fell out for was maybe an hour or so but even so that was tricky to get back in. I suppose in a way it was reassuring that if I did ever want to take it out, it would heal fine.
I bought some more jewellery off the same lady from the Jewellery Exchange and so a few weeks later brought the arrival of a pair of 8g and 6g pinchers in lovely colours and the perfect diameter for my ear. I'd been wearing the 3mm plug for what must have been a month and it seemed pretty loose so I put the 8g pincher in with no hesitation. I didn't even feel any difference in my ear so I thought I'd be a bit cocky and try with the 6g. Bad idea, I reckon. I put an o-ring on the pincher so I could guide how much I actually needed to put into my ear. The pincher wasn't very tapered so I managed to fit maybe a centimetre of it into my ear before I got stuck. I thought to myself that if I took it out then I'd never do it; my ear was fine at 3.2mm and 4mm is the only logical next step up. I knew it'd get trickier now I was going up in larger millimetre increments but I had always assumed it wouldn't be too bad. After maybe 2 minutes of very slow pushing, I managed to get the jewellery in properly. My ear throbbed and stung and I felt a bit light headed and wondered if I'd just made a very stupid mistake, especially as I was just about to bleach and dye my hair, there was bound to be some sort of ear-knocking contact. Luckily for me – and I mean very lucky! – the pain only lasted maybe an hour, fading to a dull "it hurts when I smile really big" kinda pain. The next day I managed to get it knocked out and boy did that hurt but after a week, I got a UV acrylic ring through the post and now I feel much more secure with it in. It still aches slightly but the skin around it is a lot less tough (when I first stretched it, the skin around my conch felt all hard and swollen but now it's fine) and I'm just about okay to sleep on it. I'm going to buy an 8g plug but that's when I've got the money.
My intention was always to stretch up to 2g as I bought a lovely 2g ring ages ago with the intention of wearing it in my conch but now I don't think I will. I have however decided to get my left conch pierced and stretch that up too. I'd want to wear matching jewellery in them both but I think these acrylic rings are a bit of a fluke find. I'll definitely search for jewellery before I decide what I want to do with my ears.
I also want to thank everyone on IAM who helped me out, giving me advice and tips and especially to the lovely lady who who send me all the super cute and super cheap jewellery I needed to stretch my conch to how it lies today. I hope that this has been full of good advice on how to not stretch cartilage but also you're able to take some tips from it too. Happy stretching!
