How to Avoid & Heal an Ear Stretching Blowout
Ear stretching blowouts are when a red, irritated ring of scar tissue develops around the back of the ear lobe hole from stretching your ears too quickly or too drastically. Occasionally cheaper jewelry can cause similar tissue damage to blowout. However, the number one cause of blowout is over stretching.
Healing Ear Stretching Blowout
If the tissue of your ear lobe gets damaged and blowout begins to form, don’t fret! Follow the steps below and you can stop the blowout from getting worse then heal the damaged tissue with some careful maintenance and attention.
1. Downsize to relieve pressure
If you are stretching your ears and notice that you have tissue blowout around the back of your ear, the first thing you should do to promote healing is downsize.Downsizing means to go down a size from what you are currently wearing. If you don’t downsize, the blowout is likely to get bigger.
Go down a size and see how your ear feels. You might need to go down another size or two before the pressure is relieved. You want your ear lobe to relax and recover, so go down enough to feel the pressure go away.
2. Let your ear heal for 1 to 2 weeks
Keep your ear clean during this time with antibacterial soap in the shower or by doing sea salt soaks.
3. Massage your ears for 5 to 10 minutes every night
After the skin has healed and is no longer sensitive or raw, you can begin nightly ear massages. Take the plug out, use a few drops of vitamin e oil or our emu oil, and massage your ears with a medium firm pressure.
Massaging your ears with these types of oils will promote healthy skin and blood flow as well as break up the scar tissue. As the scar tissue is broken down into smaller particles, it flows out of or reabsorbs into your ear tissue.
4. Be consistent
You will need to massage nightly to see results. It may take a few weeks or more, but if you keep to a routine of cleaning and massaging your ears, the blowout will gradually heal back into the healthy tissue.
5. Tuck blowout
Additionally, you can help reabsorption by tucking your blowout. If you have ear stretching blowout, then before you put plugs in you should apply some type of oil or lotion to your ears. We sell Zeep Stretch Up Salve and a vegan Holey Buttr that were made for especially for ears. Once your ears are moisturized, put your plugs in from behind your ear instead of from the front. While you do this, gently roll the blowout up into the ear and pop the plug in over it. Your plug should be downsized enough to hold the blowout in place without too much pressure.
The compression of the plug on the tissue will continue the reabsorption process and continue to break down the blowout. A painful amount of pressure is too much and you will probably need to continue downsizing to relieve it.
Avoiding an Ear Stretching Blowout
Stretching your ears has to be a slow and steady process to prevent any harm to your ear lobe tissue. You can easily maintain healthy tissue no matter what size you are stretching up to by following a few important steps.
1. Stretch slowly: one size at a time
Stretch your ears slowly by only going up one size, or gauge, at a time. If you use tapers, make sure you aren’t skipping sizes with too large of a taper. The big end of the taper should only be one size up from your current size. Remember, skipping sizes is a direct route to ear stretching blowout because it will tear the skin of your ear.
2. Give your ears at least 4 to 6 weeks to heal in between stretching
Yes, 4 to 6 weeks is a long time to wait for something, but patience really is a virtue in this case. You risk damaging the only ears you have if you go too fast! The tissue needs time to heal and regain the elasticity needed to keep stretching. Exercise some patience and you will have beautiful ear lobes for ever and ever.
3. Lubricate!
We sell jojoba oil, Zeep Stretch Up Salve, and a vegan Holey Buttr to make stretching easier. Moisturize your ears regularly to avoid cracked, flaky skin on your lobes.
4. Watch out for pain
Stretching up one size with healed tissue should only cause some minor pain and soreness. You should not have to struggle or apply very much force to go up a size. And you should never have intense pain or bleeding during stretching. If you do, stop, downsize, and take time to heal so the tissue doesn’t blowout.
If you have a difficult time going up to the next size, go to a professional piercer for help.