The following question recently arrived in the in-box here at Bella Body Art:

Ok well here it goes. I am a young actor. I have double zero plugs (ed. note, 00g = 9.462mm) and I want to remove them to better my acting career, you know all that handsome b.s. that the public wants and likes... Any who, I’m looking for a method to seal them up. There is no one on the internet that gives suggestions or methods for this. If you could please get back to me when you get the chance I would greatly appreciate it.... thank you.

Here was my reply:

You aren’t going to find much on this on the Internet because not a whole lot can be done to reverse stretched lobes, barring surgery.

First of all, the cultures like the Dyaks of Borneo or the African tribes that practiced stretching ear lobe piercings did so for cultural aesthetics, not personal ones. What that means is, once these people stretched out their ear lobes, they never wished for them to go back to how they were before. These practices were most often done by all persons in the tribal group and to not do them was not a conceptual option. If stretching your ear piercings was part of puberty rituals, to not participate meant you would never be viewed as an adult in the community. For the Dyaks, to whom stretched earlobes were considered a sign of beauty, you would be viewed as less beautiful than those who did it.

I suggest you stop wearing jewelry in your ears right away, and then you’re going to have to wait and see what happens. Depending on how long you've had the ear plugs, and depending on your own body, just removing the earrings will result in a reduction in the size of the ear holes. I have some 4g (5.189mm) and 2g (6.543mm) piercings in my lobes, and even after 15 years, when I take the jewelry out, the holes will start to tighten up and reduce after just a day.

However, there is no way of knowing how closed down the piercings will go. For some people, given enough time, they do get a lot smaller than the size they were when jewelry is worn. For some, the lobes stay stretched (this most often happens with ear tissue where the ears were stretched more with weight rather than increasing jewelry size.) For most folks, the holes stay larger than the average ear piercing hole and often a pronounced dimple remains in the ear.

The only known way I know of to completely get rid of large gauge holes in the ear is with expensive plastic surgery. The surgeon incises the ear hole and then sutures the tissues in front and in back, reversing the tunnel process that happens when you create and heal a piercing.

To learn more about ear piercing, you can read more about every kind of ear piercing or you might like Body Piercing: A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, And Annotated Research Guide To Internet References by Icon Health Publications.