Just had to downsize...

[corazon_de_oro]

As some of you know, I stretched to 0G (my goal size, at least for now) a couple of days ago. Everything was fine for a while, no soreness or anything, and today I decided to put in steel single-flare eyelets in place of the glass colorfronts I'd stretched with. It seemed okay during the day, and right before I was about to go to bed my right lobe got really swollen. My first impulse was to "ice" it with a cold soda can, but I didn't think that it was probably doing more harm than good (the cold made the plug feel even tighter in my ear) so it got a little worse. Finally, I just decided to put my 1G plugs back in.
It's pretty disappointing; I was so excited to be able to wear the wide variety of jewelry I have in 0G. I'd almost rather downsize again to 2G since I had so many pairs of plugs in that size. I'll think about that tomorrow.... but I guess the moral of the story is don't change your plugs the day after stretching, especially if the new ones have sharp edges!

[Acacia]

Oh that sucks I really feel for you, it seems you have tried to get to 0 for so long and I was so happy for you!

[corazon_de_oro]

Thanks! It does suck but I'll live; my ears will be there for the rest of my life so I'm not gonna force them to stay at 0G if they don't want to, haha. I think next time I'll try taping. They seemed ready for the dead-stretch but they must not have been if a simple change of jewelry made my ear swell up like that! It was bizarre; nothing like that has ever happened to me.
It's looking/feeling better today... still a little bigger than normal but if I do another sea salt soak it should help.

[Acacia]

Yeah, and you'll end up with beautiful lobes

[WindowLicker]

I wouldn't drop back down to a 2. Just leave your 1gs in for a couple of days and give 0g another shot You've been a lot smarter than the rest of us with stretching, so your ears should be able to stretch better than ours because I'm sure you've got little to no scar tissue.

[corazon_de_oro]

Thanks for the advice! I'd like to leave a lot of time before I go to 0G again, though, maybe a couple more months. It's still kinda swollen and painful. Bleh... I can't believe this happened after I waited three months between sizes! But this gives me even more reason to believe that no one should ever risk stretching too fast/skipping sizes!

[corazon_de_oro]

Update: Back to 2G... the swelling started up again so I thought it'd take off more of the pressure. The swelling went down a LOT right after I downsized but is back again, although not quite as bad. I'm fairly confident it's not an infection because I didn't have any open wounds, there's no bright-colored pus, and it's not very red or painful.

[HiMyNameIsMegan]

Awww that sucks your one of the safest stretchers on here and your ears having problems what is wrong with the world

[corazon_de_oro]

I know! It's so strange. I feel so unlucky; there are people who can skip five sizes every day and never see the consequences, but I go to an in-between size and stay at it for three months, then this happens! Oh well, that's life.

[Acacia]

Are you sure about there being no infection? Would there ever be swelling without infection?

I would do loads of seasalt soaks if i were you (which you probably are already doing )