Earstretching.net

I started gauging my ears 2 weeks after they were pierced. first gauged to 14g, stayed there until my ears healed completely (2 months or something?) i just hated the claires ear studs i had. lol. stretched up a size every couple or few weeks until this summer i stopped at 00 for a month or so. my mom didnt know i had gauges, and didnt want me to have them. and even though i am 18 i don't intentionally disappoint my mom. she didnt notice until i had 1/2 gauges, which i stretched to from 00 to 7/16 to 1/2 in 2 days with moderate discomfort, but no bleeding or scarring. the reason i did this was to hide it from my mom since wearing tapers around the house is a dead giveaway. my lobes have always been healthy and i have never had any blowouts or had any scar tissue show up. at 00 i had perfectly round lobes, but after stretching to 1/2 in my left ear is a more slitted shape? perhaps an ellipse or something of that sort. i stayed at 1/2 in for 3 months or so until recently i decided to go up to 5/8s simply because i love the look of them. i am right now at 9/16s i used electrical tape (couldnt find the ptfe tape in the plumbing section at walmart. i was too lazy to go to home depot or something.) and i wrapped 6 layers around my saddle gauges and put them in. my ears felt a little warm but there was no discomfort at all (like stretching should be) i guess because myy ears were just ready. the next day my left ear was irritated so i took it out, and my ear was slightly red on outside bottom area. its been a few days and its not irritated anymore, but i have just regular 9/16s gauges in now. is it the tape irritating my ears? or just stretching them with saddles?(bad idea i know lol) opinions and expert advice please should i use e-tape to stretch to 5/8s? or is that where the problem is at.

i now realize this is posted completely in the wrong subject area, to fix that, i also play guitar i have a Jackson dinky, Epiphone dot and jumbo acoustic, And a Traben 5 string bass. anybody else play?

Electrical tape is very made up of lots of sticky fibres so that might cause some irritation on the inside of your ear, I don't know though cause I've never tried it :L But yeah, you might want to c+p it into another place to get better advise :L
Other than that I play a 5 string bass as well, might upload some pics :L

I looked to see if you reposted this and didn't see anything, so I'll just respond here and hope you see it. It's normal for your ears to feel that way for a little while. As the other person said, the tape can cause a little bit of irritation because of the material. I've been tapin up to 3/4 from 7/16 with electrical tape for a couple months now and every so often when I add more tape I experience what you described. Just take your time with it and you'll be golden