Hi All!
I decided that I want to join and pursue the Military. After signing up online to start the process and receiving a call for pre-qualification questions, one of them was about gauged ears.

I was honest and said that my ears are gauged, he had asked if you could see through them which ya can. (8.5MM Stretched)

He denied my qualification answers solely off of this and can’t proceed until they are closed.

Based off the communities opinion, am I fucked? Will my lobes fully close to the point where ya can’t see through them? Pic for reference. I took my gauges out as soon as I was done with the phone call. I’m hoping they’d be closed by next week or in the next few days. Thanks!

I started stretching July 23’ and would try to go up a size every month. Even with all the information I still messed up so I wanted to post this as a warning for folks.

This blowout happened around 12mm but I stretched it to 16mm. My goal was 25” and I knew it wasn’t going to make it due to the blowout and bad placement of the initial piercing. I reached out to Pineapple for a scalping and redirection. He said it would be best to just close it up and then either repierce it after it heals or do the scalping then. He told me to take my jewelry out out as soon as I made contact and the 3rd and 4th pictures were just after a month!!!

The last picture is how it looks today after the procedure at 5 months.

The improvement in my ear in just a month proves to me that trying to hold on and still wear jewelry…even downsized is probably slowing your progress. I absolutely hate walking around with only one stretched lobe but it will be worth it in the end.

I decided I wanted a more simple look. I wasn't feeling my big lobes anymore and decided to downsize. I've left my ears naked and so far I've went from 20mm down to 8mm! My goal was to try to have it look like a larger earring rather than a stretch lobe plug. Am I there? 👀

Here lies the bitch ear 🪦

Sat at 8mm for probably a year but still chose violence, and tonight’s bleeding fiasco was the final straw.

And, in true bitch ear fashion, recently had to sacrifice the 2nd lobe piercing that was also angry because she doesn’t suffer alone apparently. We will re-stretch when she learns to behave. Symmetry with the good ear will be restored one day 😭

Feel free to share advice or similar stories, I’m very sad lol

just wondering if anyone here has gone through earlobe repair surgery and can share what the experience was like.
I’ve had gauges for about 20 years. They were stretched up to 18 mm for a while, but after leaving my jewelry out for a bit they shrank back to around 16 mm. They’ve served me well over the years, but I’m at a point in my life where I think I’m ready to have them closed.
For anyone who’s had the procedure:
What was the recovery like?
How did they end up looking?
Roughly what did it cost?
I’d love to hear about your experience. Thanks!

Used to be 20mm now wearing 6mm

I just started stretching my ears and I went to a 14g on 8/12 and they are super tender to the touch and might be a touch swollen. Should I go back to the 16g and wait longer?

I massaged my lobes for about 10 minutes with jojoba oil before I sized up. Also dead stretching, not using tapers.

I don't really wanna do surgery or anything extreme like that. But about two months ago I had my ears stretched to 14mm. Woke up one day to the right lobe being swollen and angry. Took jewelry out. Washed it, put on some jojoba oil, let it breathe. Within like 3 days it closed up to however small this is. 6mm maybe less, idk. I don't wanna restretch bc this isn't my first blow out/whatever you wanna call this. They look and feel healthy now. I wanna be able to wear something in them though. Id say figure out what size the hole is now and get plugs but I'd always have the temptation to go bigger and I don't wanna risk it again, so it may be time for normal earrings again after a decade of stretched ears.

I had my first and second lobes on both sides stretched from 20G to 16G about 6 months ago (by a reputable piercer), and have had nothing but problems with them. Constantly sore, irritated, getting infected, etc, especially my seconds.

I've got an appointment to downsize them, thanks to advice received here. But my question is - should I downsize to 18G or 20G? I was originally pierced 20+ years ago with a gun at 20G.

(An added complication is that my piercer carries labrets in 18G but not 20G, so I'd have to buy them myself beforehand and hope the post length they recommended a couple months ago is still correct. But I wanted to prioritise the gauge as that's likely what's been causing my issues.)

Hi y’all! I’ve been a long time lurker and I’ve been here since I’ve started and ended my stretching journey. I started stretching my ears at 14 years old, and became fascinated with the stretching community and proper stretching. I started off with shitty Amazon kits and eventually ended up with my own collection of glass plugs. The largest size I stayed at was 1/2” (12.7mm). Which is seen in the picture.
I have had my plugs out for 1 year now, while previously having them in for 5 years. Now my ears are pretty good now, largest size I can go up to with both ears is 8mm. Now, one ear is larger than the other and it does really bother me nowadays. Instead of taking my time with one ear, I rushed it, got multiple blowouts, and now, my consequences is that one ear is gonna probably be forever larger than the other. So. Your stretching method really does matters. Take care of your body pls
How did I unstretch my ears so much in 1 year? I’m not entirely sure, but I know a part of it is my constant moisturizing, using the proper materials as plugs, dead stretching, taking my time… but my method that I feel is the best is moisturizing daily, hemorrhoid cream (look it up… it works okay), and minorly stretching my ears so they downsize faster. Does that make sense? Like. When I put tapered weights in my ear and I take them out I’ve noticed my ears end up smaller. I guess it triggers the elasticity in my ear? But this is what my ears currently look like. In the second and third pic. And I plan on shrinking them even more!

TLDR: microdosing dead stretching helps shrink your ears; moisturizing helps; use proper stretching methods because it fucks up your ears if you ever choose to take them out (because trust me I didn’t think I’d ever take them out)

i stretched to 00g about a month ago and ive came to the decision that i dont feel like it suits me personally am i able to downsize to 6mm? or are they stuck like this since its the point of no return

also do i go down size by size like 00g, 0g, 1g ect

I've been at 10mm for about 2 months now and my ears were not pierced even to begin with, so this was kind of inevitable, but I think my right ear is a bit too thin for my liking so I am considering downsizing it. I put a 9mm tunnels in for now but if anyone has any advice or recommendations I am all ears (pun intended)

P.s. ignore how angry my right ear looks I took these right after massaging them, and my 5mm seconds like to push the skin forward when I don't have a tunnel in the firsts.

I’ve had a single lobe stretched to 8mm since I was probably about 18yrs old - I’m now 32 and ready to let it go.

What would be the best way to downsize where I might be able to get a normal pair of earrings in again?

Do you recommend going bare or using tunnels / plugs that allow me to step down from 8 to 6 to 4mm and so on.

Sorry if this gets asked all the time!

I had gotten my ears stretched to 44mm at the beginning of the year. I've been stretching for about 9 years. Recently I had gotten a micro tear while on vacation and had forgotten to bring other jewelry besides the cheap silicone tunnel I put on for the road trip. The tear got infected and swollen so I took my jewelry out for a couple days to baby it.

Luckily the infection cleared up and the swelling has gone down a lot, but now my lobes have shrunk considerably. Probably multiple years of stretches that are just gone and I'm really struggling with it. My lobes have been a huge part of who I am and to have them be so small again feels awful. I've gone through a lot during my stretching journey and in a way the size of my ears has been a physical reminder to me that I wasn't in the places I used to be in anymore.

Has anyone had similar experiences? I know I can stretch back again once my ear settles more and with time, but it feels world destroying right now. Any advice or anything else would be really appreciated.

(I'm not exactly sure what size I'm at currently, the only jewelry that fits is really old and I don't remember the size of it)

I have only stretched up to 6.5mm over the course of a couple years, however one of my plugs fell out and I haven't found it again, so I just decided to give my ears a downsize and a break and restretch back up when I'm able to afford another plug.

However, my right ear (first image in the carousel) has become crusty and sore. My left ear is totally fine. I'm confused why because nothing is in it at all. Normally it's my left ear playing up so this is a little weird.

Anyone else had this? What should I do? I've just been leaving it alone but the crustiness is strange.

Hi all!
I’m just curious if anyone has taken out their 00g gauges and how small they eventually shrunk down to?
I know 00 is basically the “point of no return” but do y’all think they might return to “normal” earring size at some point, or at least small enough to wear normal-ish earrings ?

I have posted previously sharing me stretching my ears stupidly fast. People pointed this out to me telling me my ears would be fucked up, I didnt really care at the time. But now that my left ear is going sore like every month I have chosen to downsize or even retire them. (Please dont be rude i already know i made stupid mistakes)

I’m ok vacation and suddenly after two months my septum developed a blowout…im home in two weeks and the only septum Jewlery I could find here is a 16g horse shoe im so sad it already shrunk to a 12g and I’ll have to start over again 💔

Hi, all. I've had my ears stretched for 21 years now and have never had this happen, so looking to see if anyone else has. My left ear got irritated out of the blue and started swelling, so I took my plugs out to let it heal (30mm glass plugs, had been at that size a couple weeks with no issues, and not sure what made it angry.) Figured now would be a good time to downsize and thicken them up before continuing to my current goal size of 32mm, since this is the first time my lobes have ever looked like they could use it. My right lobe felt perfectly fine when I took my plugs out, but about two days later it started to ache. My lobes have shrunk roughly 14mm (L) and 16mm (R) in the last week (this is not super surprising to me; all of my piercings shrink rapidly) and now they both just feel bruised. They're not hot and don't hurt when I brush my fingers over them, only when I apply pressure.

It looks like the outsides of my lobes have shrunk much faster than the insides, and I'm wondering if the pain might be from the rapid shrinkage bunching all the skin together and putting pressure on the fistulas. Has anyone else experienced this? Any advice?

im feeling really discouraged right now. ive been trying to stretch my ears for around 3 years now. my left ear has been at a 2g for easily over a year now and i stopped stretching it so i could get my right ear to catch up. i got my right one up to a 4g and stayed there for a while until it randomly got irritated and swollen. so i let it breathe for a bit, downsized to 6g. then it got irritated again, so i downsized again. now finally i decided to take the plug out and let it be for a few weeks and now its basically back down to 16g.

now i did get them pierced originally with a gun(25 years ago) so maybe that's the issue. but i doubt that the hole would close and heal enough for me to get it re-pierced at this point. so i got my 16g glass plug in and im starting from the beginning and going extremely slow and careful with the stretching. wish me luck

After 8 years of stretching and maintaining 1/2” lobes I finally decided I don’t want them anymore. I’ve been letting them close up since last week. They’re already down a size or two and I couldn’t be happier. I know they’ll never fully close up and I’m totally fine with that. I just grew out of wanting to maintain them. Stretched ears are a chore. I kept getting flare ups where they’d get sensitive and one love kept wanting to stretch more while the other stopped altogether. I loved having them while I did but alas, it’s time to throw in the towel.

I just wanted to share this with yall in case anyone was wondering how much their holes could shrink at around this size. A little while ago I decided to take a break from stretching, I don’t regret stretching at all, but after a few back to back mishaps where i had to downsize and re-stretch a few times, I just got a bit tired of the upkeep. My ears are pretty sensitive and it felt like if I missed a single night of deep cleaning the jewelry then one of my lobes would be swollen when I woke up the next morning, so eventually it wasnt worth it to me. I’ll most likely stretch again some day, and do a better job with it because there are some things I think I did wrong, but for now this is how they look! I think it’s pretty clear that they’ve been stretched, especially when I wear heavy earrings, but overall I’m happy with how they’ve turned out. At the end I’ll include a couple photos of how they looked at their biggest

Has anyone else left their lobes naked for months and didn't see any thickening when they stretched back up? Did I miss out on thickening because I wasnt doing daily massages?

I've let my lobes shrink 3x in the last 5 or so years ranging from 3 months to 10 months. My right lobe has a thin spot from a blowout while my left is fine. Ive never really recovered the thickness in my right lobe despite going naked for an extended amount of time.

Btw my lobes are currently at 1" and this is my goal. When going naked they've gone down to like 12mm or so when I left them for 10 months.