Squeamish Warning: this article addresses some not-so-pleasant realities of wearing heavy earrings over a long period of time. Read at your own risk!
A friend of mine who's had her ears pierced since age 5 recently told me something quite gross. Her earring holes (which for as long as I can remember have been stretched to a slit of several millimeters) had been stretched to the point where they nearly split her earlobe in half. This was due to her many years of stretching the holes with heavy earrings plus an unfortunate snagging incident. The thought of it makes me shudder, even though it's not as bad as it could have been. But my friend was faced with a dilemma: do I give up earrings? Can I get my earlobes back to normal?
This story illustrates the short answer to the question posed in this article. Do heavy earrings stretch earlobes? And in fact, yes, they do. Wearing a pair of heavy earrings once in a while will not do much to stretch your earring holes, but when you wear them every day over a number of years you will begin to see your tiny piercing holes turn into longer piercing slits. And, in some unfortunate scenarios, this can go as far as dividing your poor earlobe in two. So what's a person to do? Fortunately, there are options.
Option 1: Prevention
Prevention is always going to be a great go-to for any malady of the physical body. In this case, you can prevent your earring holes from stretching by opting to wear earrings that do not exert a significant gravitational force on your ear lobes. In other words, wear lightweight earrings! This is actually one of the staples of earrings at Tini Lux-- incredibly
lightweight and comfortable
hypoallergenic earrings that will be kind to your ears in every way.
If you absolutely love big (heavy) statement earrings, you can still take care of your earlobes by only wearing them for special occasions and limiting the time you spend with the earrings in your ears. For example, if you like to wear heavy earrings to work, put them in for the work day and take them out when the day is over. The less time you spend with earrings tugging your ears, the better for keeping your earring holes intact.
Option 2: Earlobe Repair
If you're too far gone for prevention to be an option for you, don't worry. Earlobe repair procedures are actually quite a standard practice for many dermatologists and plastic surgeons. In a nutshell, these professionals "refresh" the edges of the torn earlobe with a scalpel and then stitch it back together. Some offices have multiple appointments to ensure a healthy healing process. Once it heals, you can go back to wearing earrings in the mended earlobe.
Option 3: Earlobe Support Patches
I can honestly say I did not know these existed until I started doing research for this article. Earlobe Support Patches like the one seen here are designed to mask stretched earring holes and to reduce the strain that heavy earrings have on your piercings. This may be a good option if you don't want to spend the money for a surgical fix or if you have experienced some earlobe stretching and want to stop it in its tracks while still wearing heavy earrings.
The moral of the story here is that even if you have ear piercings that have stretched considerably, it does not mean that you will have to give up earrings or live with stretched out earlobes forever. Be sure to check out some of Tini Lux's super lightweight earrings and remember, happy ears only!
