Gages

       Gaging is stretching and already existing piercing. Originally done only by tribes and in different cultures, it has entered the western world and become a hit (well at least for some). There are several ways to "gage" or stretch openings, and you can do them in several places other than just the earlobe.
       The most common professional way to do it is by Tapering. It's done by lubricating a the desired sized taper (circular rod) and pushing it through the piercing. Once you reach the end of it, you place the desired jewelry (that's the same size as the taper) next to it and slide it in as you pull out the taper.
       Then there is Dead Stretching; where the larger sized jewelry is simply forced in, however this can cause buildup of scar tissue making it harder to be enlarged later on, and/or, it could cause a "blow out" and tear the skin.

          Also there's Teflon Tape Stretching. This is done by simply adding one layer of non-adhesive Teflon tape at a time until it's the next size gage. This way is the safest and most recommended by professionals to stretch piercings.
       Now there are several other ways as well (Using weights, scalpelling, silicone plugs,etc.) but I won't go into them. As you can see there are several ways to stretch piercings and there are even more types of jewelry you can use. Plugs, O-rings, and flesh tunnels are some of the more common ones used today. Plugs is just a simple cylinder filling that can flare out on the sides(its the brown one in the picture with little swirls on it). An O-ring is in the picture to the right, it's the clear blue one. Flesh tunnels are the ones that show space through the piercing (it's the silver metal one).

    Now even though these are popular, there are a few health issues that can happen. There's the obvious scaring that can happen, and then there's also the "point of no return". This is achieved once a person goes onto a gage size bigger than 0g. Once after that size, the tissues in your ear will not shrink back to the size of the original piercing.

Gauge	Millimeters	Inches
18g	1.0 mm	0.0310467"
16g	1.3 mm	0.039758"
14g	1.6 mm	0.0459"
12g	2.1 mm	0.06349"
10g	2.6 mm	0.077396"
8g	3.3 mm	0.0948"
6g	4.1 mm	0.1046"
4g	5.2 mm	0.2363"
2g	6.5 mm	0.387"
0g	8.3 mm	0.4007"
00g	10 mm	0.457"
7/16	11 mm	0.48217"
1/2	12 mm	0.5"
9/16	14 mm	0.63"
5/8	16 mm	0.7298"
3/4	19 mm	0.75"
7/8	22 mm	0.8562"
1 inch