I am in no way telling you to do what I did as I am only an apprentice and have insufficient knowledge about this topic. Some of my methods are not recommended and I am lucky that they worked for me.
At A Glance Author Jonathan Araquistain Contact takrawdaddy@yahoo.com When A week ago Artist Marcelo Studio Built to Last Tatoo Location Hayward, California Well ill start out by telling you a little about myself, I am only 17 years old and within the past six months have immersed myself into the world of body modification. My experiences are very limited due to my conservative parents but what I have was enough to spark the modern primitive inside me. Ever since I pierced my own ears back in March of 2003 I have had a strange fixation with piercing.
As my piercing healed I decided I needed something more, something to bring back that comforting pain that comes with the healing of a piercing so I decided to stretch my earlobes. I won't go into too much detail here about my stretching so ill leave you to read that experience in the stretching section. Once I had my ears fully healed at three quarters of an inch my parents put their foot down and gave me an ultimatum (sp.?), either I "stop with this stretching bullshit" or else risk having my earlobes "snipped on the bottom so I have two dangling strips of skin." Of course I stopped but soon felt the need to add more. I devised a compromise: I would take out my second ear piercing which by then I had stretched to a 2 gauge, and let them heal completely if I could get another ear piercing done. When I presented this idea to my parents I made sure to ad that it would be impossible to stretch this new one I'm going to get (I know its untrue but you got to tell them what you want to hear). Thankfully they agreed and the very next day I went to have a friend of mine pierce them. I got my left ear done first, vertically through my antitragus, down through the three quarter inch hole and out the bottom of my lobe and I must say it is an altogether different experience getting cartilage pierced that thick. Since at that time I had no money or way to buy three quarter inch earlets with holes in them I just had the bar going through the empty hole. When I got home I realized that the hole would probably shrink and so I opted to stuff whatever extra jewelry I had on the sides to ensure that the hole stayed the same size. I had inserted a 4 gauge CBR, a 00 earlet, a 0 gauge acrylic plug and a small piece of a pen that I had cut. Since some of the things kept falling out I wrapped one of my girlfriend's rubber bands for her braces around the plugs and that seemed to keep it in place fine. This worked for a while until the swinging of the ring as I turn ed my head started to drive me insane. Luckily, my more creative side came out and I was struck with an idea. I drove to the nearest craft store and picked up a three quarter inch dowel. Once I got home I took off a piece and sawed a slot down the middle. I even tapered the end a little for easier insertion around my new transverse lobe. I kept this in until my dad took my old earlets to work and drilled holes through both of them. I'd have to say I was pretty excited that day when I went to see the piercer. He put it in for me and the result was a masterpiece, but, I had not yet pierced my other ear. That day we scheduled for me to come in that weekend and get it done. This ear didn't go as well.
Instead of stuffing my array of objects in the hole or even making another plug myself I figured the weight of two, 2 gauge rings would keep it open, oh how wrong I was. Three days later when I went to get that plug put in I was severely let down. As much as he tried Marcelo couldn't get the plug in my ear so I left as I had entered that day. That night I decided I was going to get that plug in again so I make another wood plug, got my earlet ready, and took out my bar. After heating up my ear I tried pulling on it for a while to see if that would give it the extra room it needed. It wasn't so I just had to stretch it in my least favorite way, shoving that shit in. After about fifteen seconds of forcing the earlet finally popped into place and I was able to push it out with my wooden plug. I then fed the bar through my now horribly swollen transverse and proceeded to take some pain killers and go to sleep. I wasn't supposed to go and get the earlets put in for a few more day s so I started to get impatient. I decided to try it myself since after all I am an apprentice piercer and need to learn somehow. So I made sure to clean the hell out of my ear and put in the earlet. Feeding the jewelry through the home-drilled holes was not too hard and after a few min I was able to get it through.
This was only a few days ago and now my ears are doing just fine, the left one is almost completely healed and the right one is doing much better than it was. Now when people gawk at my ears because of the big hole in them they can also marvel at the bar that goes right from the top to the bottom. Once I turn 18 and am officially able to pierce whatever the hell I want I plan to get another horizontal one in each ear. If the site posts it you can see a picture of my self stretched ears and my beautiful vertical transverse lobe piercing. If my parents knew what I was getting when they agreed to it I'm sure they would've said otherwise. Damn I love tricking them.