What is the largest you can gauge your ears at them still heal?

The largest gauge is " 0 ", sometimes (on rare occasions) you can go to " 00 " and still have the piercings shrink to look almost normal. Now I need to clarify these remarks with the following statement.

"If you stretch the lobes up "properly" the piercings will shrink back down to a some what normal state once the jewellery is removed, the shrinking will take time (months) and will not happen within weeks or removing the jewellery. Proper stretching involves and investment of time and patience and can not be rushed (jumping gauges and going too fast between gauges).

Proper means one gauge once every 4 weeks, this allows the tissue to stretch without being forced and tearing the tissue. Once tissue is torn it's done and the piercing will look like a cat's butt when you remove the jewellery and will always look bad.