Lobe stretching tips

Will

Heres some information for people who are planning on stretching.
Like my last little guide, please do not take what I say as gospel. If you are having problems with whatever you are stretching go see a professional body piercer and they will guide you as best they can.

BEST WAY BAR NONE: Just be patient, your lobes will loosen up over time, mine are at 26mm and self stretch. Regularly have to leave them bare so they will stretch down. If you are patient there is zero risk involved as your lobes will have naturally loosened up.

Tapers: Most people starting off stretching their ears will get them taperd by a body piercer. Pretty simple, just involves inserting a taper into the piercing followed by the correct jewelry size. Usually done up to about 10mm or so, after that taper sizes are only done at particular intervals. Once you reach that size you'd wanna be thinking about other ways of stretching.

advantages - easy, in the hands of a professional.
dis-advantages - sometimes theres a charge if you go to a piercing studio, if you buy your own tapers theyre expensive enough and useless once youve passed the size. Dangerous too, can you trust yourself with a taper? Most people are stupid...

Dead stretch: This is the method I did use for a while. Basically, you get a piece of jewelry that is 1mm bigger than the size you are currently at, lube up the jewelry if you so chose. Then just put it in. If you wait a few months between stretchs this method is generally ok. However, I dont recommend it. Puts your ears under huge amounts of pressure due to forcing the jewelry in. I usually pop an anti-inflammatory when i do this just to ease swelling (if there is any).

advantages - easy to do if you wait long enough.
dis-advantages - if you don't wait long enough it can be sore, can in some cases cause blowouts, can be troublesome if done incorrectly.

PTFE tape Most people will double take at this entry. Trust me it isnt that bad, and not in the slightest bit kinky. Simply put, you get a piece of jewelry (preferably something long with no flares, ask for a no flare tunnel) and wrap some tape around it, maybe one or two rotations. Once your ears are used to this you can size up again if you so wish.


advantages - easy, cheap, no risk if done correctly.
dis-advantages - none as long as its done right and you dont push yourself. Some people are allergic to the tape though so if your ear is irritated or anything due to the tape do not use this method.

Dermal Punch: This is for people who want to have large gauge lobes from the get go. Body piercer uses a dermal punch to remove tissue from your lobe and inserts the jewelry or if you want to go bigger than 8mm he/she will insert a taper to further stretch them, when you are healed. A lot of blood, painful to a point but you get to your ideal goal instantly.

advantages - quick, relatively risk free if done properly.
dis-advantages - you lose tissue, hurts, its not cheap, you will have an 8mm hole in your ear for the rest of your life. if you ever want to go down to a lower size tough, unless you go for surgery.

Scalpeling: Incision is made using a scalpel. Huge sizes can be reached with the flick of a wrist. Much like dermal punching you cannot downsize unless you go for surgery.
advantages - Large sizes from the start.
dis-advantages - Almost the same as dermal punching except with the added bonus of more blood. However you do not lose tissue.

DERMAL PUNCHING AND SCALPELLING SHOULD ONLY BE DONE BY WELL TRAINED BODY PIERCERS

Tips, Tricks and general care of stretched lobes!
- The amount of time you should ideally wait between stretchs is about 3 months.

- Giving your lobes a little tug now and then will help loosen them up a bit if you plan on stretching further. Little tug, don't rip off your lobe just yet. Heavy jewelry will do the same also. Heavy jewelry can cause uneven stretching in some cases so beware.

- If you can, massage your lobes. This will increase circulation in your ears and make them healthier looking. There are products out there like "holey butter" you can buy for ear care but I find good quality olive oil does the trick just as good if not better. Jojoba oil and bio oil also. Do not use things which will irritate your skin. Be sensible.

- Once your ears are acustomed to their new size its generally a good idea to sleep with the jewelry out. For a number of reasons.

Its comfier and gives your ears a chance to breath. When you wake up just give your ears a quick rub with olive or whatever, and put em back in. Your ears will have shrunk a bit during the night so lubing em up will make it easier on you. I usually just fling em in, im not botherd looking for olive oil etc. in the mornings.

Note: Only do this when you are confident your ears are used to the new size. Doing it a day after stretching is just plain stupid.

- Downsizing every now and then is also good for your lobes. Mainly due to the reasons i outlined above. Will relieve pressure on your lobes and increase blood flow making em healthier and leaving you with less of a chance of your ears thinning.

- You know the nasty smell and residue you get on your jewelry after wearing them after a while? Well the stuff is called sebum (well really its the bacterial breakdown of it). Body produces it, mainly due to the fact that there is no air getting to the insides of your ears. To combat this I recommend organic (wood, bone, tusk etc.) jewelry. Because organic materials are porous they absorb the sebum and leave you smelling good and crusty free!


Warnings

- Everyone is different but once you go past the point of no return with stretching (around 6mm or so, depends on the person to be honest) you will be stuck with big holes in your ears.

- Do not go up in size any bigger than 1mm in one go (apart from scalpelling and dermal punching). I did this with my right ear. Went from 16mm to 18mm (dead stretch, stupidity on my behalf). I got the beginnings of a blowout. Check here for a better definition and some images.

- Only use good quality jewelry, goes without saying i suppose.

- If you feel the beginnings of a blowout, immediately take out the jewelry and leave it out until it has gone back to normal. If you act quick enough you may bypass the blowout and just be left with a smaller lobe. Stretching up again is a pain in the ass but its way better than having a nasty piece of tissue hanging from your ear.

Final words

- Don't be stupid, if you push your body too hard you will be left broken. Stretching your lobes or any other piercing is not a race, take your time or else you will end up with a nasty blowout or worse...

- If you decide to go down the route of scalpelling or dermal punching make sure you will be happy to have big lobes for the rest of your life. Another point to note is only let a good and well experienced body piercer go near you. Don't go to some hack who has never done it before, check portfolios for previous scalpelling work (fresh and healed pictures) and only go with what you feel is right.

If there's anymore questions ask away. Hope this was helpful.

truthinwords

This should be stickied. I didn't know some of this and it probably would have saved me a lot of trouble (I'm getting my blowout cauterized in the next few weeks and punched upto 26mm from 20mm while I'm there). Excellent work Willburt.

xtruthx

Will

Thank you
punched or scalpelled to 26mm?

truthinwords

Crescent punch just to loosen it up. I did a lot of dead stretching. Which is why my advice would be let your piercer put it in for you and don't buy jewelery in advance. My problems only started once I began stretching for myself at home.

xtruthx

Will

a cut with a scalpel will do the same thing and wont get rid of any tissue like a punch will. if it were me, id go for the scalpelling instead of the crescent punch. up to you though

truthinwords

Yeah it would be but since I want to eventually go upto 36mm's from the 26mm that's what was recomended.

xtruthx

Will

I don't see the logic in it, presume its celestial ring in stephen's green yeah?
I get a second opinion from the guys in snakebite or mark in v piercing.

truthinwords

Well he said he could scalpel it to a 30 straight away but since I want to go the little bit more he said to punch it and then stretch from there. I'll probably get a second opinion if I'm not happy after I go in to organise it all.

Star Lord

Good work Wilburt!

+1 for sticky-ing this

Léan

Aye this should be stickied! There's always loads of questions on stretching!

armageddon_pony

great work dude!
will def use some of the tips.. )

Gauge

Good tips Wilburt! I think PTFE/plumber's tape is also worth a mention- it has no adhesive unlike electrical tape.

Will

thats what i ment by electrical tape but words escape me sometimes, cheers

rannerap

no more stretching for me i dont think,my ear is happy at 8mm,especially after that blow out scare,i was stubborn and refused to give it up without a fight,its healing great now:)h

mac123

nice thread, should come in handy as im gonna start stretching soon!

Will

ah saranne you say that now, i too was gonna stop at 8mm. I give you a month, 2 months max before you stretch again
yeah you were lucky with your ear alright, very lucky

CianRyan

Pretty nice post, but there's two thing wrong with it.

1. If dead stretchting hurts, its because you're not waiting long enough between stretchs.

2. Plummers/electical tape should never be used for stretching.
The adhesive used for it is carsonagenic. for anyone that doesnt under stand that, it gives you cancer.

Will

yeah tried to edit my post earlier but it wont let me for some reason
PTFE or Teflon tape should only be used when taping up.

The Artist

great edit will it should be a sticky forum and very interesting.It would help anyone who starts stretching should learn from this forum.well done Will.:D

Will

it wont let me edit it at all the button is gone, a mod will have to change it for me if possible

[Clo]

I think I might have the beginnings of a blowout, but I'm confused about that very prospect because I thought you either got them when you were stretching or you didn't.
It's only at 7mm at the moment, and the skin isn't actually sticking out at the back, but I have this strange lip of flesh inside the tunnel. When I take my plug out, it literally looks like it's closed back up. But I've no problem putting it back in then.
Should I downsize just in case?

Will

is it sore or raw at all?
if you could get a pic it would help, hard to know from your description. if you are worried go to your piercer they will know

CianRyan

sounds more like a keloid to me

their are the most annoying things ever, i got one on my upper ear, cartilage like, and i just had to take it out, horrible

Melion

Ok since i started a thread by accident, ill ask in here. Wilburt informed me id have to wear studs for 6 months to a year as im the lobes arent pierced ATM. Is there any chance of wearing any kinds of plugs instead? Dont really want silver studs in my ears for a year.

Will

You can only really wear plugs/tunnels once you hit about 4mm or so. They start to become noticeable then.
What I said there is what all the big names in piercing say. They recommend waiting about 6 months then putting in 1mm bigger jewelry. At that rate you dont have to even stretch because the tissue has naturally stretched itself. Better in the long run but people dont have that type of patience

Melion

Wilburt wrote: »

You can only really wear plugs/tunnels once you hit about 4mm or so. They start to become noticeable then.
What I said there is what all the big names in piercing say. They recommend waiting about 6 months then putting in 1mm bigger jewelry. At that rate you dont have to even stretch because the tissue has naturally stretched itself. Better in the long run but people dont have that type of patience

See me for proof of lack of patience

Thanks for your help man, much appreciated.

Will

If you've got anymore questions just shout or pm me

RazielDoomgate

hmm if i shouted out the window think id get a reply from ya wil? ha must try it

CianRyan

You could were like, nicer earrings?
I had penguin earrings from clairs in till ym ears were ready to stretch like.

And as will sayd about only going 1mm a month, listen too him, as you lobs gett bigger, they tend to stretch easier anyway, liek i can go 2mm every two weeks with out feeling it go in, but that doesnt mean i should do it, so i go 2mm every month, which still probably isnt too good.

Crumble Froo

actually, not sure i'd recommend claire's jewellery... each to their own n all, but i used to wear loads of it, and i'd frequently have the colour falling off it and getting caught in the piercing, usually some infection or something would follow up. pity, cos there were some really pretty ones, particularly a star pair i had for ages, that started off black,a nd ended up silver...

definitely wouldnt recommend them for a relatively new piercing.

Tiroskan

Oi, Melion, you could always get pierced at 3mm. That's where I started and they did it with barbells instead of studs, which looked pretty awesome, tbh. But it'd be big enough to swap out for plugs/tunnels after a few months. They're only weeny at that size, but it's still plugs, y'know? Alternatively, you could look about getting pierced at 3mm with a stretch to 4mm straight after. I don't know how they feel about doing that in Ireland, but from what I've heard, it's perfectly safe and I know personally I stretched too soon after getting my ears pierced, but I'm more willing to sit at 4mm now and let my ears rest because it's a more substantial size. Anyway, hope that helps

Star Lord

Like Will said, the recommended stretching rate is 1mm every 6 months!!! Not every month!!!
That's a fast track to a blowout/tear, which you don't want!!!

RazielDoomgate

DamoElDiablo wrote: »

Like Will said, the recommended stretching rate is 1mm every 6 months!!! Not every month!!!
That's a fast track to a blowout/tear, which you don't want!!!

that said. everyone is different. i got periced to 4mm stretch away. waited 3months and then streached to 5mm and then every 2months i went up by 1mm i only used tunnels when stretching too.. just something that would slip in with relitve ease

princess-sprkle

cheers for the tips, i've recently started stretching my ears, read all of this before i started!

Star Lord

RazielDoomgate wrote: »

that said. everyone is different. i got periced to 4mm stretch away. waited 3months and then streached to 5mm and then every 2months i went up by 1mm i only used tunnels when stretching too.. just something that would slip in with relitve ease

True, but you dramatically raise your chances of having problems with it by stretching it at this speed.

Gauge

1mm every six months is a bit on the overly safe side Damo. The recommended guideline is this:

1.2mm to 1.6mm- 1 month
1.6mm to 2mm - 1 month
2mm to 2.4mm - 1.5 months
2.4mm to 3.2mm - 2 months
3.2mm to 4mm - 3 months
4mm to 5mm - 3 month
5mm to 6mm/6.5mm - 3 months
6mm/6.5mm to 8mm- 4 months
8mm to 10mm- 4 months

Will

I would have gone by that up until I started work.
Basically since I have to remove my plugs everyday for work it was irritating them, even though my ears were settled at 19mm quite comfortably.

I have a blowout on my right ear at the back and even worse, a blowout on my left ear at the front. I've downsized to 16mm and rubbing olive oil into them everyday after work. Getting a friend in Canada to send me some holey butt'r too.

I've stretched my ears over a period of 2 years so far. 24 months and took 4 month break from stretching last november. Even at that my ears still got agitated due to me removing and inserting the plugs. As a result have to deal with nasty blowouts. Thankfully I've got them under control (sort of) and am seeing great results even after a week. Hopefully won't have to get them scalpelled.

I know everyone isn't in the same position I'm in, where I've to remove my plugs every working day but it's something to note. I can't really say if this would have happened but just take it into consideration when stretching.

Star Lord

Gauge wrote: »

1mm every six months is a bit on the overly safe side Damo.

Was basing that on Wills guidelines there, plus the face that the slower you go, the easier it would be on your ears.

On your guidelines Gauge, it's around 1mm every 2-3 months, which isn't too bad at all, although I'd bet most people try to go faster than that...

Will

Gauge's advice is spot on also, like there is no right or wrong as long as you take your time and don't rush it.
Right viewpoint: Slow and steady
Wrong viewpoint: 25mm lobes in 1 month.

Star Lord

I know better than to question the experience of either Gauge or yourself Will!

Will

Ah no I don't mind, plenty of stuff I don't know, I aint no amazingEmmet

Star Lord

*slap*

How dare you even think of comparing yourself!!!

Melion

How did you get pierced to 4mm immediately?

Will

You can get 4mm needles or can get pierced at 3.2mm and get it stretched up immediately using a taper

Star Lord

You can also get punched at larger sizes than the needles would allow, but have a good chat with your piercer on the pros and cons beforehand!

Melion

And would 4mm or even 3.2mm be big enough for tunnel jewellery?

Will

Won't be that noticeable but yes

Melion

Hmm, ill look into it when i get paid next week so. Cheers lads

Gauge

I usually start wearing tunnels at 3.2mm. You can kinda see through them. It's cute

Melion

Well finally got pierced today. Its a 1.6mm hoop which to be honest, im absolutely hating. I just dont like rings like these, too many knackers wear them around here and dont want to be associated like that. I was thinking about buying these http://www.bodyjewelleryshop.com/online_store/steel_stretching_crescent_kit_16mm_5mm_4140467.cfm

Would i be able to put the smallest one in straight away? (Well in about a week once they have healed a small bit)

Melion

Oh, here is the other set im looking at. I know they wont go in straight away as the smallest is 2mm but i was thinking i could maybe get it into the lobe in about a month

http://www.bodyjewelleryshop.com/online_store/buffalo_horn_crescents_5_crescent_kit_4139466.cfm