Kate Beckinsale wears giant earrings for this year's Golden Globe awards
Giant earrings, up to 6 inches long, have been a big trend recently, courtesy of designers Louis Vuitton and Zac Posen and celebrities like Kate Beckinsale and Michelle Obama, but this trend comes with a health warning and women are turning to surgery to keep their earlobes tough enough to hold the jewellery.
The Telegraph reports that plastic surgeons have seen the damaging effect earrings can have as the soft flesh of the earlobe can't cope under the weight of the jewellery. This can lead to excessive sagging and stretch the pierced holes. In extreme cases the earlobes can even split in two.
The operation to stitch it back together takes about 20 minutes under local anaesthetic and costs about £300 an ear.
James McDiarmid, a consultant plastic surgeon told the Daily Record: "Women are being damaged by fashion earrings. Usually, we can refreshen the edges and put them back together and repair the ear front and back.
"It is not just splitting. The lobes swell and they have lumps the size of a marble that look like dumbbells on either side of the lobe.
"When you are hanging chandeliers fro my our ear, you have got to be cautious."
To combat the problem women are having a synthetic filler called Restylane to toughen up their earlobes. Plastic surgeons are predicting that an operation to strengthen the earlobe by using it's own cartilage will soon be available.
David Gault, a surgeon who specialises in ear reconstruction, said: "In future, we will be able to perform an operation by using cartilage from within the ear and put it into the lobe to strengthen it."
We think we'll stick to studs for the time been.
FemaleFirst - Jessica Watson