I stretched from 14g pretty much as soon as the swelling went down, and it stopped pussing. 12g was easy. Stretching from a taper can hurt a bit, but a lot of the time I just push it if I feel as though it has the chance to make it through. If it feels hopeless I stop, or I'll go as far as a can a few times over a couple of times and then push it all the way after I've worked it for a while.
A lot of shops are pricy, but thankfully even hand made glass at Liquid is pretty cheap.. Other than that I saved a bunch on piercings because my gf has pretty much every piercing shes owned in every size up to what shes at now so if I wanted to stretch and liked something she used to have, well, bingo. haha.
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