My right ear, however, gave me a little more trouble. He was only half way through with the taper when it started hurting really bad. He again stopped pushing and this time let it sit for about 60 seconds until I told him I was ready for him to continue. We just chit-chatted a bit which helped calm me down and then the final push and jewelry insertion wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, though, this particular ear has been giving me trouble ever since. The healing isn't going quite as well as with the other one and I'm to blame more than anything because I don't do the sea salt soaks as often as I should and I know I manage to get hair gel and hairspray on the piercing every morning even though I try to be careful.
It is getting better though. I bought a pair of really beautiful 6 gauge gem plugs from Tribalectic for my next stretch, and I can't wait to see them in. But I'm probably going to have to wait at least another couple of weeks, and try to be better about doing my sea salt soaks and not getting hair styling stuff on my ear.
It should be noted that Billy, my piercer, warned me ahead of time that stretching 2 gauges at a time is a big jump and that it would be a lot easier to just go one gauge each time. But, I think I'll continue 2 at a time at least until they start getting really big. My eventual goal is 00g so I'm not going super-huge. Soft lobe tissue stretches a lot more easily than cartilage. If I was stretching cartilage, there is no way I'd be stretching that much at a time.
I've contemplated this stretching for over 5 years now and finally decided to go through with it. Not only do I really like the way it looks, but I also feel that I am more qualified to write about something here if I have personally experienced it. So, I will share my stretching experience with everyone here and hope that I am able to help someone else contemplating it or in the process of stretching.
