Some help with stretching?!

[hayes1307]

Im new to stretching so bare with me. Alright so you have probably seen this 110x but i gotta ask. How long should you wait between each stretch. Now wait before you freak and tell me to do some research.

I know the generic waiting periods for each stretch but i think it varies from person to person. I know some people who have stretched every 2 weeks to 00g without any rips,catbutt, or blowouts. But then again i know some people who have had blowouts because it was too soon.

Is there a way i can tell if my stretch is healed? Do people get blowouts, rips, etc. because they push the ears too far even if they feel pain when stretching? If my ear isn't sore, red, swollen and if the plug is loose and i try to stretch and the taper goes in without pain does that mean it was ready? even if it was earlier then the generic waiting time?

Do people go by the generic waiting time because they dont want rips, blowouts, or catbutt or is it because they dont want the lobes thinning?

Thanks for you help!

[DubstepPanda]

IDK. Everyone I knew when I first started stretching waited only two weeks and said that that was the standard healing time. It wasn't until I did some Internet-research that I found out otherwise. Usually, it's a month; but some piercing shops/websites advocate waiting two-to-three.

It depends on each individual person, yeah.

After your first stretch, how long did it take for you to be able to fondle the jewellery inside your piercing and massage your lobes without it hurting at all? And how long did it take before you stopped leaking some of that stuff people commonly (and mistakenly call) pus? Generally, it takes a week for that stuff to go away and another before (usually) you can fiddle around with your tunnel/eyelet/plug/etc. freely.

Remember to wash your piercing hole every day in the shower with mild soap and massage it to promote blood flow and healthy healing. After you notice the jewellery in it freely slide and slip around and be able to be manipulated with your fingers around inside the hole/you can tug the jewellery down and see your earhole above it, then that's a sign you can stretch up.

Sometimes with larger gauge stretches, the plugs/tunnels fall out of people's ears randomly, whether or not they are ready to be changed.

Blowouts are surprisingly easy to steer clear of. The key is to take it slow and not to force the taper in if it refuses to comply. Take a long, hot shower and massage your lobes for elasticity and then pop a couple ibuprofen if you're crap with pain, before putting in a taper in the next size up. If you meet too much resistance/the taper will NOT go in and/or feels like it is not at all moving into your ear, then take it out, put your old plug back in, and save it for another day when your ear heals back from you trying to stretch it. I've known people who've gotten blowouts even though they were very meticulous in their ear care and stretch only one size at a time a month and a half apart, but one of my close friends used to have stretched lobes and would skip sizes as rapidly and out-of-time as a runaway con's heartbeat.
Like, starting with 6g. And then just over a week later going to an 8g, and then going to a 2g in the same week as that. She eventually got to 5/8"s five months later.

Feeling pain is normal for stretching; it's to be expected. If you feel as though it's too vividly painful or if it hurts in a different way then your old stretches, you should stop and consult others with stretched ears, preferably someone with a higher gauge.

I remember my 8g-to-6g and my 2g-to-0g stretches... the probably most painful thing I have ever endured in my life. 99.8% sure the 8g-to-6g hurt so much was because it was done in a Starbucks bathroom and on a bench in a mall without any sterilisation or lubrication.... I cannot fathom the immensity of my prior stupidity.

If the taper goes in without pain and your old plugs were loose anyway, then that means that it was due time for you to stretch up. However, you will want to wait longer for newer stretches because as you size up, the differences in the gauges grow. (I.E.: The difference in size between 00g to 0g is bigger than the difference in size between 0g and 2g, even though both sets are the next size up to each other.)

My stretches were erratic and oddly spaced apart because of many reasons.. For example: I had to wait before visiting America to buy more. (The only place we have in my city now that they removed Spencers Gifts is Culture Craze.... $20 per SINGLE acrylic taper? Hell to the no.)

But whenever I did have tapers in the correct sequential (I think I'm using the word wrong here, but I don't know the right one for what I'm trying to say) sizes, I'd wait two weeks before stretching up and about a week after the new stretch to swap out the tapers for plugs in the size I had just gotten to.

Now that I'm at 7/16", I'm trying to wait three weeks or three weeks-and-a-half before each new stretch.

Sorry, I don't really hunt out info. about stretching online that much, I go by instinct, common sense, previous experience, and my friends' war stories. Haha.

Hopefully I was helpful. If a bit long-winded... I get carried away a little too easily.

[hayes1307]

Thanks for your reply! Thats exactly what i was looking for!.

It was about 1-2 days before my ears werent sore and i could message my ears without it hurting. Thats with the 14g and 12g stretch. I just stretched to 12g tuesday and my ears stopped being sore yesterday so they only stayed sore for a day maybe. There is no pus stuff at all on either 14g or 12g stretch. It took about 5 days for me to be able to mess with my plug freely without any resistance on the 14g. I can mess with my 12g now but there is still alittle resistance. That seems fast healing time doesnt it?

And yeah i feel alittle pinch when stretching but nothing i would call pain. And i know i havent hit the big jumps yet like 8g to 6g or 2g to 0g. I know i will feel that more then the others. Wow at the mall?! not ideal haha but hey it worked maybe it hurt alittle more but you got it ha.

Yeah i got 14g-0g 316L stainless steel tapers and plugs from an online store for 35 bucks! I dont go to the mall to buy tapers and all that theyre way to expensive!

Thanks again for your help!

[TonyxMAE]

PAIN SHOULD NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH EAR STRETCHING AT ALL. If you feel pain, stop what your doing.

If you know the generic waiting times, you should adjust them to how YOUR ears are, not other peoples stories and experiences. People get blowouts/rips because they either stretched to quickly, recklessly or their ears weren't ready to stretch just yet.

If the taper/plug goes in without resistance, yes it means you can stretch up but if it was a short time since your last stretch it'd be wise just to let your ears get a little 'stronger' and ready to accommodate a larger size.

People go by the generic waiting times simply because it's a generic guideline to safe stretching to avoid all problems. But you also have to understand that the generic guideline is just a generic guideline. Nothing more, some people can go faster some people slower.

Slower is better. In the long run your ears will be healthier, happier and look great.

[Deano]

Tony nailed this one. The most one should feel while stretching is a slight burning/tingling sensation, but there should be no real resistance, pain, blood, pus, lymph, anything like that. It should never be sore afterwards. I was able to play with my 4g eyelets the very next day after stretching from 6g. The only reason it took that long is because I stretched not long before I went to bed. The burning/tingling lasted all of 15-20 minutes for both my stretches so far, but it has not hurt one bit.

[DubstepPanda]

Crap. Well, going by what the two posters above me said, I'm guessing me and everyone I know are stretching incorrectly, or they must have crazy pain tolerances, because I now take very special care of my ears and stretching and they still hurt quite a bit to the point where my head will throb and pulse with pain for up to a few hours afterwards.

Even if your ear seems super healed already, just to be safe, wait a week before stretching again, to ensure thick and healthy lobes. The pinching feeling is very normal.

Yes, but I was stupid and I ripped one of my ears at that time. 10g to 8g for me didn't really hurt, it was more of a soreness.

Don't know what Dean's saying, but I think it's normal to have lymph and pain, (in larger stretches), but definitely not resistance, blood, or pus. Blood shows that you've ripped your earlobe, at which point you should downsize IMMEDIATELY so they can heal. Pus means infection. I only started to get lymph in my stretches after I went from a 2G to a 0G, and none of the sizes below that.

If your ears are sore, they shouldn't be for more than two days, otherwise you have a problem. Ideally, in larger stretches, they'd be gone after about half a day.

I have no idea what Tony is saying either, because if you're stretching up, shouldn't there be at least a little bit of resistance? Because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't just glide in effortlessly and painlessly. If you feel as if something is wrong with the degree or type of pain, stop and consult someone like a person who works in the body modification industry with stretched ears. It should be a stinging pain as the taper starts to go in, and a burning sensation for a little while after you've stretched up.

Don't clean with cotton balls or loosely-packed Q-Tips! Some old body modification forums would always say that the cotton may get caught in jewellery/your ear and harbor infections.

Again, everyone is different. So Tony and Dean would react to stretching themselves differently from each other, me, AND you. Also, their pain tolerances would be different, materials they used, healing time, etc.

Adjust wait times, etc, with your comforts. Don't stretch up from a new stretch for at least two weeks though.

[StrickyCub]

I think there is just some confusion on what "pain" is when you're stretching.
When you stretch up, you should feel some warmth and a slight tingle, as well as some pressure. By pressure I mean it should feel tight/snug on the new jewellery. This kind of "pain" is OK.

"Pain" that is BAD when stretching is the following:
Stinging, burning, throbbing, aching.

Also after stretching, even though your stretch didn't hurt, your lobe will be slightly tender for a few days and will also become irritated easily if you play with it too much during the first 1-2 weeks.

A good indicator to tell if your ear is ready to stretch or not, is by gently pulling down on your jewellery and seeing if there is a gap above it where you can see through your ear. Gently tugging on your jewellery every day will help to assist with this and loosening up your ear (even if you have scar tissue).

Everyone's ears are different, but it's always better to wait longer between stretches, than it is to wait shorter amounts of times. Even if you ears are ready to go up to the next size and the stretch isn't painful, giving your lobes a little extra time to build up more skin tissue for thickness is always beneficial.

~Zack

[corazon_de_oro]

Pain can always be avoided with stretching if you just wait longer, and in some cases you may even have to decrease the size of your stretch. For example, 2G-0G is waaay too big of a jump for most people no matter how long they wait, so going to 1G in between can make it completely painless, and less damaging to your ears.

Anyway, stretching should never cause any open wounds that need to "heal," and if it does you've stretched incorrectly and need to address that problem before thinking about going bigger. You can tell you're ready for a new size if the next size up will fit with no pain and little resistance. If it hurts, wait longer. I wouldn't recommend waiting any less than six weeks between sizes, though.