Experts Predict What Can Happen To Your Ears If You Wear Heavy Earrings

If you’ve ever worn a pair of heavy earrings, you know the feeling of relief when you remove them at the end of a long day. It’s comparable to the pain and relief of taking your hair down from a tight ponytail or removing your bra; it’s the ultimate freedom.

But how bad are heavy earrings for our ears? Not only can they create stretched-out lobes, but they may even cause you to need medical (and even surgical) intervention.

HuffPost spoke to three plastic surgeons to learn more.

Heavy earrings can undoubtedly contribute to lengthening your earlobes over time, especially as you age — the skin sags more, and ears, in particular, tend to lose volume. Because of this, when you start noticing overall laxity in your lower face, it might be time to retire those heavy earrings.

“The earlobes typically start aging with this area,” noted Dr. Jennifer Levine, an award-winning double board-certified plastic surgeon.

“The earlobes appear droopy, especially later in life,” said Dr. Lyle Leipziger, chief of plastic surgery at North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center. “Wearing heavy earrings can encourage the downward pull of gravity on the earlobes, creating an elongated and saggy appearance,” he added.

Earlobe skin is inherently elastic, said Dr. Saba Motakef, a board-certified plastic surgeon, but heavy earrings can pull the tissue over time. “Gradually, natural collagen production fills in this tissue as it stretches, and the stretching can become permanent,” Motakef said.

With prolonged usage, heavy earrings can stretch the earlobes and cause sagging and even tearing. “The earring hole itself may stretch along with the downward displacement of the earlobe,” said Leipziger. “Downward elongation of the earring hole creates vertical lengthening — the earring hole may appear as a vertical channel instead of a round hole.”

“In some cases, the piercing may pull through the earlobe, creating a split or cleft earlobe,” warned Motakef.

“These issues are more likely when sleeping with them in or having a telephone up to your ear with them on. Putting weight on a delicate area is never ideal,” said Levine.

This depends on the person and their skin’s laxity, but wearing heavy earrings for long periods isn’t recommended, especially if loss of volume has already occurred.

Damage “can appear anywhere from a few months to a few years of regular use,” said Motakef.

Who should be more cautious about wearing heavy earrings? There are a few categories, according to the experts:

• People with thin or stretched earlobes

• People who have had surgery or other procedures to reverse sagging ears or who have a history of earlobe tear (they should never wear heavy earrings)

• People with a history of connective tissues or collagen disorders (like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome)

• People with autoimmune conditions like lupus, which can make skin more fragile and prone to damage

• People with a history of hypertrophic or keloid scars

• People who have had their ears pierced in the last three to six months.
  

Experts say to limit the use of heavy earrings as soon as you notice any signs of prolonged redness, discomfort or sagging.

Lighter earrings or clip-ons can be good alternatives when you want to give your ears a rest. Plus, you can sometimes try adhesive lobe support patches (stickers or reinforced metallic backs) that help support earlobes and reduce strain from heavy earrings, said Motakef.

In mild cases, sagging earlobes can be reversed using dermal filler injections, said Levine. Filler can plump and lift the sagging earlobe and may even improve the hole sag, too, Leipziger said.

However, more severe cases require surgery to repair the stretched earlobe. Earlobe repair surgery typically uses local anesthesia and takes 30 minutes to one hour.

Surgery should entirely remove the elongated earring hole or correct elongated or split earlobes. A similar procedure can be done to reshape the earlobe and make it more symmetrical for people who want to enhance their overall appearance.

After having your earlobe repaired, ensure that you do not re-pierce your ears in the same spot. “This may cause the repair to open–the re-piercing of the earlobe can be performed just in front or posterior to the previous earlobe hole approximately three months after the repair,” Leipziger said.