‘Fixing’ Old Blow-Outs

«« Navel Piercing and Minocycline    minor surgery and tattoo »»

Saturday May 3rd, 2008 @ 12:04 AM

Filed under: Ear

So, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. In hindsight I clearly stretched too fast.

I was pierced at 4g in Jan ‘06 and stretched by my piercer up to 9/16in by sometime in early-mid ‘07. That’s when I realized I had minor blowouts. I wish I could provide a photo because they’re not cat-assy or lippy…more like slightly concave.

Anyhow I downsized, massaged and put in a pair of 00g SSS eyelets.

A few months later I had a piercer suggest weights to ’straighten’ the skin out. So I recently tried for a good month or so with heavy hanging jewelry and it hadn’t done much of anything in terms of ’straightening’ them out.

Now I’m back up to 1/2in from trying the weights (though wearing 7/16in. jewelry) and I’m wondering what else I can do.

Should I continue to downsize and massage or is it a lost cause at this point?

I doubt these last two questions are possible, but I thought I’d go out on a limb and ask anyway.

Would tapering from back to front have any impact on “retraining” the skin or would it just do more damage? (I’m assuming more damage or the possibility for more damage.)

Is there anything that can be done with a scalpel and sutures to pull the skin back into a proper position with minimal tissue loss?

The problem is essentially the waiting game. So many people, and piercers as well, have this notion that within a few months anything is capable of being stretched to a larger gauge. Sure this might work for some people, however for the majority of people it won’t work.

My suggestion to you is to downsize and massage the lobes daily until the blow outs are re-absorbed into the body. From there wear whatever jewelry fits in easily with no problems and don’t consider stretching your lobes again until anywhere from 6 months to a year, potentially even longer.

These problems occur from constant stretching and just like a rubber band when you keep tugging on it, it will eventually break/snap. So like I said remove the jewelry and massage daily till the problem is re-absorbed into the lobe tissue, put jewelry in that doesn’t stretch the pathway. Then from there allow your lobes the time to really establish that they are healed and if anything naturally let them stretch on their own. As you should never technically need somebody to taper your lobes to a larger size, if you simply just wait long enough.

Posted by Warren Hiller | Permalink | Leave a comment | Trackback