How do I get my ears normal?

April 4, 2008 10:16 PM

How do I best get my ears more normal(ish) after stretching to 00g?

I am thinking of taking out my plugs and trying to get my ears roughly back to their natural shape. I stretched to 00g. I don't want to do anything too drastic, and do realize that stretching is more or less permanent. I was wondering if there is a better or worse method for restoring such as sizing down slowly over time, just taking them out immediately, etc?

Thanks!
todd

posted by aussicht to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (8 answers total)

I'd be surprised if anything really makes your piercing holes "normal" again. I had my ears pierced as a small child and then wore heavy earrings through the 80s, as one did, and those holes are still pretty wide these many years later.

Short of surgery, which is fairly simple but obviously totally aesthetic and not covered by insurance, I'm not sure what you could do. Ear stretching is like tattoos, if you want to reverse it you're going to have to pay a penalty.
posted by padraigin at 11:07 PM on April 4, 2008

If you stretched to double zero and did not cut, you're fine. Take them out -- they'll shrink. I was at 00 in 2000 and took them out to attend a funeral in Alabama. They DO shrink back (depends on your ears). You can still tell that i had my ears pierced (just as you can tell I had my lip pierced), but it's subtle. I didn't do anything special, just pulled them out. Seen others do the same from about the same size.

If you cut to get there (which people are, unfortunately, doing a lot of these days), that's a diff. story -- but plain ol' stretched? you're fine. No-one will be able to tell they were stretched in about a month or sooner.
posted by fishfucker at 11:19 PM on April 4, 2008

It really just depends on your ears, so I don't think any answer here is gonna be concrete. Some people stretch back with no problem, others aren't so lucky. The only method I've seen people use is rubbing vitamin E on their lobes. How much of an actual effect that had, and how much was just body chemistry, I can't really say.
posted by Roman Graves at 2:42 AM on April 5, 2008

Take the plugs out - Leave them out for three months or so. Your ear will naturally shrink down a whole lot. Then take a nice acrylic taper-shaped piece of jewelry and try to stretch them as much as you can. Leave the jewelry in overnight and your ears will be irritated as hell when you wake up, because acrylic jewelry = Bad times, so that when you remove the jewelry, the holes will heal up tighter than they were before. Repeat as necessary.

This method got my 5/8th" ears down to about 6g. I would have taken it further, but I've since then stretched my ears back up to 00g. (The stretches the second time around were WAY easier than the first time, if that's a concern at all.) Vitamin E oil also works to break down any scar tissue that may be making your ears look cat-butt-y.

One time, on BMEzine.com, I heard someone mention inserting a drillbit into their ear (!) and twisting it by hand to irritate the fistula (gently!), to achieve essentially the same effect. YMMV!
posted by lizzicide at 6:08 AM on April 5, 2008

I actually just took my 00 plugs out about a month ago. My ears already look "normal". They look as if I just have pierced ears and wear heavy earrings. The wholes shrunk a ton within the first week and then more slowly after that. I even originally had mine punched at a four gauge and stretched from there.
So, in my personal experience, getting your ears back to normal from a 00, even if you had them punched, is quick. I just took the plugs out and left them out. I didn't experience any pain or irritation as they shrank back down.
Of course, IANAD or an expert on piercing, and your experience will surely depend a lot on your body and how it heals.
posted by honeyx at 8:40 AM on April 5, 2008

I had both my ears and septum at 00. A couple years back took them out. They look normal. I can still put 6 ga ring in when I feel like it. Also, I love to freak people out an perform the "straw through the nose trick".
posted by bleucube at 1:22 PM on April 5, 2008

lots of good advice here already, but for more personal anecdotes, check out bme. there are thousands of stories/questions about shrinking stretched ears.

definitely keep your lobes lubed while you downsize, just as you did when you stretched.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:29 PM on April 5, 2008

I've seen really good results when people just downgrade the jewellery size until they're at a small size again rather than taking them out and leaving it to shrink... the holes seem to shrink more evenly and with less obvious scarring. Use Vitamin E cream or Bio-Oil to keep your skin supple too.
posted by indienial at 7:05 PM on April 5, 2008