Very good advice! I did mine in the bath, with knitting needles, 4mm at a time, and it did take alot of force to start with! Then when I ran out of knitting needles big enough I used a fat pen, then my finger. Just went up as soon as it stopped being crusty and bloody and I could handle the pain again! I'm now upto 16mm which is as big as I'm going (though I did say that at 8, 10, 12 & 14...). I had a 2nd 8mm next to the 16 in my left ear for about a year before I decided I didn't like it anymore last week, and just put a normal 1.6 ring in it, and already you'd never know it was stretched at all