Is it normal for stretched ears to hurt

This depends on each person. Although sources say that 6 weeks is the minimum time to wait between stretches. Professional piercers recommend that you wait between months between each stretch. The extra time allows your ears to have more time to heal and lower risk of tearing your lobes. The longer you wait the healthier and happier your lobes will be!

How do you start stretching your ears? You start the ear stretching process with first getting your ears pierced, then letting them heal. Once they are fully healed look into getting a gauge kit and ear lube. If they want to layer those experiments with culturally-specific meanings, communications and belief systems from cultures they themselves do not belong to, then those same practices become appropriative.

Every person is different. Is ear stretching painful? Ear stretching should not be too painful. Yes, there will be some discomfort, but your ears should not be screaming in pain.

If this is so please go to your local piercer for care. Is ear stretching supposed to hurt? When sizing up your ears may be sore, but you should not be in pain. Can ear stretching cause headaches? If you stretch to fast a headache may be a side effect. How ear stretching works? We believe it has been popularized by the body modification community.

How to make ear stretching less painful? While this is generally a safe and pain free practice, there are some symptoms that you should watch out for if you think an infection is developing. While this can be effectively treated at home in the early stages, progressive infections should be looked at by a physician or medical professional. Even though the risk for infection can't be completely mitigated, washing your hands, expanding slowly, and always using sterile jewelry are steps in the right direction.

Now that you know what to watch out for, happy expanding! Is It Infected? Symptoms of Infection Depending on how you choose to stretch your ear, either through tapering, professional stretching, weights, and so on, your lobes might be a bit sore as you are stretching.

These include: Redness and swelling lasting more than a few days that appear to be getting worse. Stretching your ears causes tiny tears within the skin; however, these tears should heal within a few days and start to feel better.

If you notice increased swelling and redness, infection might be possible. If you stretch your ear too quickly, you might experience slight bleeding. This becomes a concern when the bleeding is excessive or accompanied by pus or discharge. Pus is your body's way of trying to fight an infection.

You might also notice an abscess, which is a pocket of pus on the lobe. Fever or swollen lymph nodes are also signs that your body is trying to fight an infection. This in conjunction with the other symptoms could mean that you need to seek professional diagnosis from a medical doctor, since a fever could be a sign that the infection has progressed from your ear.

Treating Infection at Home In most instances, you can treat your infected stretched ear at home. Don't Remove Your Jewelry While it might make sense to take out your expander or plug, removing it might promote an abscess. Wash Your Hands Before touching your piercing, you want to wash your hands. Apply an Antibiotic Cream Antibiotic cream can help to fight bacterial infections within the ear. Avoiding an Infection While infection can happen, there are steps that you can take to help to mitigate your risk before, during, and after stretching your lobe.

Before Before beginning your stretching journey, it can be helpful to talk to a professional piercer. During The best advice for expanding your ears is to go slow. After So, you've made it! An Expanding Issue Ear stretching is a form of body beautification that has increased in recent years. Three Healing Stages of Tattoos. Ear Piercing.

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Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. All rights reserved. This image may not be used by other entities without the express written consent of wikiHow, Inc. Tug gently on your ears. Before you make any decisions regarding the method you'll use to stretch your ears, consider how much you want to stretch them.

If you're only moving up a size, the most pain-free option would be gently pulling your ears until they stretched out enough to accommodate new earrings. If you're looking to stretch your ears considerably, however, explore other options.

Consider tapers. Tapering is the most common method to stretch out your ears. If done correctly, this method is relatively painless. Tapers are sets of rods that gradually increase in diameter. To stretch your ears, you would get a set of tapers, push the taper all the way through the hole, and replace it with a gauge the same size as the end of the taper. By the time you complete the set, your ears should be stretched as large as you want.

This will make your ears heal unevenly because of uneven weight distribution. Some people use spiral gauges as tapers, they can be work for long periods of time and allow for longer stretching periods [3] X Research source. Try taping for gradual adjustments. If you want to stretch your ears slowly, consider taping. This allows you to gradually stretch your ears, which can reduce pain, but in smaller increments than you would use with tapers. To tape, use non-adhesive tape.

Wrap this tape around the parts of your earrings entering your ear. Increase by one or two layers at a time until you've stretched your ears to your desired diameter. Avoid silicone and double flared jewelry.

You should not wear silicone plugs until your ears are fully stretched and healed. If used when stretching, silicone can tear the lining of the ears and potentially cause infection. Double flared jewelry as flares are sometimes large enough to cause pain and possible permanent damage to your ear. Part 2. Don't stretch too fast.

Moving too fast through the stretching process is one of the biggest causes of pain. Regardless of your chosen method, wait until your ears have healed before stretching them further.

This can result in permanent disfigurement and damage of the ear lobe. Surgery would be required to correct this. Advancing size too quickly increases risk of infections. People heal at different rates, for one, and it also depends on how much you're stretching; however, it's recommended to give your ears at least a month to get used to one size before moving up.

Only increase size in 1-millimeter increments for example, from 1 mm to 2 mm. If you don't feel a lot of pain, you may feel overeager and want to skip up to a higher size to speed up the process; however, this increases the chance of causing permanent damage to your ears. Even if you feel confident, skipping sizes is a bad idea.