Well it finally came the day where I just had to face the fact that stretching cartilage is pretty foolish and dermal punches are the only way to go with large gauge cartilage piercings. Was sitting in the shop and decided it was time to get it done. 10 mins later: Yeah I was going down the route of an 8mm punch but felt it would be too ridiculous, plus wouldn't match my other conch which is now at a 5 as well, so a pair of 5mm conch's looks pretty good! Yeah they hurt like a b*****d and are pretty prone to spot bleeding (like I was enduring 5 mins ago) but they are much simpler to deal with and after a couple of months can wear it without jewellery which always looks good. Bear in mind these are permanent and the cartilage wont come back so think about it! I still recommend them 100% though.