Apparently you can now not only get botox, a face lift, or a nose job, but also an ear job, too…who knew?

Well, plastic surgeons may be on to something here, because there are earlobes out there, everywhere, with elongated pierced earring holes.  Ahem. And the owner of said earlobes is none too pleased with this…

How do you make certain to avoid the dreaded stretched earring hole, you may ask?  Here are a couple of tips, from someone who took one for the team:

1. DO NOT wear earrings to bed.  Ever.  Ever.  Ever.  Doesn’t matter what kind…Never. When I was first married, I was afraid that my husband would run screaming to the hills when he awoke next to me in bed and smelled my morning breath, saw the rat’s nest in the back of my head and saw me unadorned.  So, being absolutely ridiculous, I slept with makeup and whatever earrings I had happened to be wearing that day.  I really cannot believe that I got any sleep at all with giant hoops attached to the sides of my head.  How do I know that this adversely affected my earlobes?  Because I could feel them start to tug at the edge of the hole.  Sounds pretty gross, right?  But true.  And then I would feel pain in my earring hole and get little scabs that would form at the edge of them.  Being all about ‘fashion over comfort’ back then (less so now…I’d much rather be in flip-flops than heels!), it took me a while to stop the madness.  Thus the ear lobe droop.
2. DO NOT wear heavy earrings, dangling or not.  There are so many varieties of earrings today, you can easily find beautiful, stylish, dangly ones that weigh next to nothing.  Hold them in between your fingers before you purchase them.  Try them on, if possible, especially if they are real, not costume, because it would really stink if you couldn’t wear what cost a pretty penny!  If they feel heavy they probably are.  Find another pair.  Remember that there can be some small heavy earrings that can do damage to your lobe, as well.  Watch out for those; they sneak up on you when nobody’s looking…
3. When you use the phone, it’s a good idea to take out the earring in the ear with which you listen to it.  Probably not something you think about too often, but after about 10 minutes holding the phone up to my ear with an earring in it, I notice that there is some discomfort.  That, folks, is the feeling of your earring hole being stretched…owww…
4. Get large backings for your earrings.  This will help support the earring by flattening the back of your ear and help prevent earring hole droop (disease where the earring decides to point toward the pavement by the end of the day), which can aggravate earring hole lengthening.
5. If you haven’t yet had your ears pierced, that’s great!  Politely ask the piercer to please have a quick look at the markings they made on your earlobe, prior to them piercing.  That way you can ensure that the hole that will be created in your earlobe is on the high side of the center of your lobe.  This is like insurance, as you are foreseeing the potential of ending up with a long earring hole and you want to make certain that you have some room to play with before it actually splits your earlobe into the fork-like tongue of a serpent!

OK.  Are you thoroughly disgusted?!  Sorry, but I just want to save you from the possibility of irreparable damage to your very cute ears and save you from the chagrin of no longer being able to dress them up!