How to Stretch a Piercing

Weights are not a good idea to stretch your piercings, as it puts pressure on the bottom only, and can cause thinning. Weight earrings are for short periods of time, a few hours to half a day at most. Wearing heavier materials will help your holes loosen faster, but heavy weights are a bad idea.

Blowouts are when the inside of the piercing, the fistula, is pushed outside, and forms a "lip". They happen from forcing a stretch before your piercing is ready, or skipping sizes. To heal a blowout, downsize and do oil massages. Insert your jewelry from the back to help push the fistula back in. Blowouts can permanently heal if not treated, and will need minor surgery to be removed.

Scar tissue comes from damage while stretching. It makes future stretches harder, and looks bad. Do oil massages to reduce scar tissue, downsize if the scarring is severe. A piercing that looks very wrinkly (cat butt) is probably due to scar tissue.

Piercing guns are unsafe, and traumatic, compared to needles. For the safest and most painless piercing, go to a professional piercer that you trust. Make sure they use new needles, or autoclave all their materials.

Stretching should be considered permanent. There is a good chance that a piercing will shrink after stretching, but no guarantee. Don't stretch if you aren't willing to stay at that size. Stretching past 2g (6mm) is usually considered the "point of no return", but for some it's smaller, for others larger.

Stretching too fast, or skipping gauges can cause your skin to tear. If your stretch is bleeding, or has lymph fluid which makes a crust, downsize your jewelry to a smaller gauge, and use saline solution to clean it with. Make a weak solution of sea salt and hot water, and soak your piercing for 5-10 minutes. Rinse your skin with clean water afterward. Do this at least daily until it's healed. Too much salt can cause more harm than good, the solution should taste like tears.

Cartilage piercings should not be stretched using the above steps. Larger cartilage piercings, such as an inner conch, are generally pierced at the desired gauge. Stretching may result in the formation of keloids.^[5]