Let me just start off by saying that you should get piercings done in a qualified shop by a professional piercer who sterilizes everything and you should talk to them and do research as well before you actually start any form of modification on yourself. I believe in the experience and knowledge gained from doing it yourself but if you don't know what you are doing then it's really not a good idea.
At A Glance Author Vance Contact iRoCkSoXx@hotmail.com IAM VanceyPants When Six months ago Artist Me Studio My house My stretched lobes started out by me and my girlfriend piercing them with a 12g sewing needle about eight or nine months ago, give or take a little bit, which was a horrid idea and you probably shouldn't try that.Originally they had just basic studs in them but those fell out over night and so they shrank up to a 16g. I stretched them up to 14 the morning after that and so obviously they didn't like that very much and were swollen and spewing puss balls for about four days or so. I stuck it out though and ended up with pretty decent looking holes.
About a month and a half later I went back up to 12g and everything was fine with that, I cleaned the rings with alcohol and washed my ears and everything daily. That was before I knew that alcohol is really strong and shouldn't be used to clean piercings with on daily basis. I stayed at 12g for about a month as well and then I went up to 10g and all the way up to 2g like that, increasing every month or so.Which really means about every three weeks. I really should have waited longer between stretches but that was the first time I've ever stretched so I was still kind of dumb.I even used externally threaded rings to just kind of force the hole open up to about 8g. Yikes.
The stretch from 2g to 0g is where it really got tough. My right ear is completely fine and pierced high enough and straight but the left is lower than I would like. The taper refused to go in and refused to go in the night I tried to stretch. I didn't force it, I decided to wait about another month. This was almost four months then and when I tried to stretch it again...still it refused to go. I turned to the only place that I would trust with something like this obviously..bme. I found out about a method using teflon tape (plumbers tape) in order to increase slowly up about one gauge and when I tried this it actually worked and got my ears up to 0g. I did about two wraps of tape around my old plug maybe twice a week and then eventually the taper slid through quite simply. It took about two and a half weeks to get the taper in without forcing it. Thank god for tape haha. About three months later I went up to 00g and actually went and got some glass plugs for my ears because I was tired of the acrylic making my ears gross every day.
Thanks to more and more research of bme I have found that down sizing will help to thicken your lobes up and also emu oil will help as well so I'm going to start doing that soon as I can get ahold of some emu oil in order to thicken my lobes up a lot. I was at 00g for like two months or so and then the 7/16 taper just slid through so that's where I'm sitting at right now and more than likely will be here a while to heal my lobes. Right now I'm trying to help break down scarring with vitamin e oil but I'm thinking of getting some extra virgin olive oil because I hear that's really good to decrease scarring.
If you plan on stretching your ears, the best thing to do is to wait until your ears are fully healed and stretch easily without forcing them. Externally threaded jewelry is bad and acrylic made my ears gross but it may work in yours. If you plan to stretch, get some high quality plugs that won't damage your ears and ruin your hard work. I also would recommend going to a qualified professional to stretch them for you and also to pierce your lobes. I know my experience hasn't been to eventful but I actually waited for the most part until my lobes were ready so it has went decently smooth. There have been some bad ideas and mistakes along the way but that's kind of what it is about...it's a learning process and the experiences are what make life worth while. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it correctly and more professionally :)