Like many people, my ears were pierced as a baby with your standard 18 gauge needle. I was content with those for most of my life, being as I was very sheltered, and knew nothing different from a single tiny hole in each ear.
At A Glance Author carve_your_name Contact carve_your_name@bme.anon When It just happened However, as I hit the middle of high school, I realized there was more to life than looking like everyone else, and decided to rebel against my upbringing by getting a second lobe piercing and stretching my first piercing to 8g. (I know, I was so rebellious! Well I'll tell you, my parents weren't so happy about it, and I went to a very conservative private school)
I didn't originally set out with the goal of 8g in mind, and I don't even remember how exactly I progressed from gauge to gauge, but I eventually ended up there, I assume through gauge progression and by pulling on the earrings constantly. The pulling was a nervous habit of mine that I haven't given up on yet. I think I was trying to pull through my lobes completely, but fortunately I haven't been successful yet.
Anyhow, my ears stayed at 8g for several years (around 3 1/2 years) until I hit college and met my husband, and I was suddenly hit with a desire to be as conventionally attractive as possible (and darn it, large earrings were not it!). All I wanted was for him to like me (which obviously he did), and I was afraid that anything different would scare him away. I know you can start a long debate with just those last two sentences, but lets not. It was the way my world was.
So for another 3 years, my lobes were empty, eventually closing way down to 12g, and I was happy.
But after being married for awhile, I realized I wasn't completely happy being "conventional" and "normal", and I realized I was suppressing myself, so I decided to do a few things for myself, such as getting an industrial piercing, and re stretching my lobes.
It took a long time of debating and wondering and worrying whether my husband would like and accept it or not, but a mutual friend told me something, and it convinced me to get it done.
What he said was this: "Love is a lot of things but not pretending to be someone you are not."
So after that, I realized my husband would either love me no matter what I did to my body, or not be worth my time and effort (it wasn't as big a deal as that, but you catch my point), and I got my new piercing and re stretched my lobes.
The desire to stretch my lobes came on rather suddenly, as I had been browsing this website rather heavily, and saw many people with stretched lobes who just looked beautiful. And their lobes were beautiful. And life was beautiful!
The stretching started very slowly, as I was only intending to go to 10g with a pair of gorgeous buffalo horn wings. The wings had a curve running to the top, which were slightly tapered, and I used them to stretch my ears. I spent between 5 and 10 minutes per ear, taking them from 12g to 10g, and I just slowly pushed them through until they reached the end of the tapering. After that, it only took about a week before my ears were completely used to that size.
After a few weeks more, though, I was smitten by a pair of blue glass tunnels in 2g (6.5mm) and knew I just had to do it!
So, late that night, I bought myself the tunnels and a pair of tapers that went down to 2g. When they arrived, I immediately put in the tapers, which was on a Tuesday night. The tapers easily slid through about 1/4th of the way, and all I had to do was gently push them through until it hurt too much to progress any further.
And so I stretched the lobes, absentmindedly pushing on them, stretching the ears slowly. They would hurt a bit while I was adjusting them, and then the pain would subside as they got used to the position. Then I would start slowly pushing again, so my ears were almost constantly in pain. It was difficult sleeping at night, and one night I couldn't sleep at all because of the pain. I'm pretty sure I was progressing too quickly for my own good, and I would not recommend you taking as short a time to stretch your lobes. But I think the tapers were a good idea, though, as it's cheaper than buying earring in each new gauge, but it all depends on how serious you are about it.
Anyhow, on Saturday morning, there was the glorious feeling of my lobes sliding on to the very end of the tapers, so I placed my tunnels against the end of the tapers, and pushed them straight through. They didn't hurt much at all at that point, since there was just constant pressure against the inside of the lobes, but they do hurt if you mess with the earrings (which I have a bad habit of doing constantly).
Well, it's now Sunday, three days since I started, there is not much pain, they feel (and look) wonderful, and so do I! (And my husband is dealing with it all quite well. He's not keen on what I did, but he loves me enough to overlook it)
^___^ And now that I'm done, I'm considering going up to 0 or 00g, but we'll see.