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By infmom, July 5, 2009 12:49 pm

New tattoos can take a surprisingly long time to heal completely.  How you treat them during the healing time has a lot to do with how they’ll look afterwards.  This is definitely a time to be in no hurry.   But let’s say you’ve followed all the instructions, and now it’s weeks later and your tattoo is still itching, or oozing, or swollen?  Something’s not right.

Tattoo ink is not an inert substance.  The pigments in it can cause allergic reactions, and unfortunately there really is no perfect way to tell whether you’re going to react to any particular color.  You could have the artist do a few dots of each color in an inconspicuous place, wait a few days and go back to get the tattoo, but just because you don’t react to a small amount of the ink doesn’t mean you won’t end up with problems when a lot of it goes into your skin.  And then there’s always the possibility that the small amount didn’t cause problems itself, but it sensitized you against any further applications.

I had a nice tattoo applied to my ankle at a tattoo show on the Queen Mary.  It was an impulse decision, something I ordinarily advise strongly against.  But it definitely made a mediocre already-existing design look better, so I went for it.  I’m not sorry I did.  But that’s how I learned I’ve got problems with red ink.  Fortunately, as you can see in the photo, there’s not a lot of red ink in the design.  But those small red areas remained swollen, itchy, and intermittently crusty for close to two years after I got the tattoo.  Nothing seemed to help, although Benadryl makes some nice anti-itch lotion that made it quit bothering me for a while.   I put Nivea cream (the thick stuff in the small blue tin) on it regularly, and finally my body and the red ink agreed to co-exist peacefully.  But that reaction has made me somewhat hesitant to go get any more tattoos.

Your own health may also be an issue.  If your immune system isn’t up to par or if you heal slowly (as many diabetics do) it will definitely affect your ink.  Be sure you let your artist know about those conditions before he or she starts work.  It might be that he or she will not want to do the work if the healing will be compromised.  This is something that you and the artist will have to deal with.  No matter how eager you are to go ahead with the tattoo, the artist has to think of the possible consequences for both of you if things go wrong.

Some people worry about infections or HIV.  Going only to a reputable shop will reduce the likelihood of that to the bare minimum.  Tattoo needles are used only once, on only one person.  The rest of the equipment is sterilized at high heat in an autoclave.  The artist wears gloves and everything that touches your skin is disposed of after the work is done.  It’s as close to sterile conditions as human ingenuity can make it.  This is not to say you still can’t get infected after you leave the shop (we live in a germ filled world, after all) but the likelihood of the needles being the source of the contamination is vanishingly small.

I’ve written more extensively on tattoo health issues in the past, and I invite you to check out that series of messages starting here.    I’ve also written about the surprisingly common problems with nickel allergies here, here, and here.

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By infmom, June 20, 2008 9:44 pm

I’ve written a couple times before about my own health issues. I’m a Type 2 diabetic, diagnosed ten years ago but probably had it a year or so before that. I’ve gotten all three of my tattoos since being diagnosed, and had no particular problems.

The last tattoo was slow to heal, but I believe that was more due to a reaction to the red ink. Diabetics don’t heal as quickly as other people, and the slow healing can be even slower if the person’s blood sugar isn’t under good control. It’s not a complete barrier to getting inked, but it’s something to take into consideration. Slower healing means more chance of infection, scarring, and generalized messing-things-up.

This week I started on insulin at bedtime because my blood sugar was NOT under good control. Something went haywire somewhere over the last six months and I was getting higher and higher readings and having little success getting back to business-as-usual with my former combination of diet, exercise, and oral medication. Many Type 2′s think of going on insulin as somehow having failed. I don’t see it that way. It’s a lot easier to adjust the dosage of insulin than it is to try to monkey around with oral meds. I mean, how many times can you break a pill before you’ve got nothing but dust?

As I watched my readings get higher and higher I knew that it would be a very bad idea for me to get any more tattoos. High readings mean slow healing, and since I’m leaning very strongly toward having a more-visible tattoo next time (if there is a next time) I definitely do not want to have something that will swell, itch, weep, crust, and look like space-alien skin for months. So I have even more incentive to get the insulin dose right and keep things in equilibrium.

Doing a Google search on “tattoo diabetic” brings up a lot of interesting articles including several on the concept of having your Medic Alert information tattooed on your skin so you won’t have to wear a tag. Of course, if your medical condition makes tattoos a bad idea in the first place…. um, all in all, I’d rather just keep wearing my removable tag.

Do you have health issues that make you wary of getting more ink?

photo credit: mcbill

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By infmom, December 28, 2007 12:49 pm

When I got my most recent tattoo, I certainly didn’t expect it to be the last one I ever got. However, the healing process was unusually slow, and it’s only now (more than two years after the fact) that the swelling and itching under the red ink has finally subsided.

I had pretty much made up my mind that it would be a bad idea to get more ink, since I had (and have) no way of knowing what exactly I reacted to. And that was dismaying. Because tattoos are addictive. (The photo at left shows my dragon, which also remained itchy under the red parts for quite a while after application).

But since it seems that I do evetually heal, I’m thinking about getting a visible tattoo this time around. My other three are usually concealed by my clothes. I’m proud of being a multicolored person and I’d like to show off my ink on a more regular basis, but really, the only practical way to do that is to get another tattoo.

To show or not to show?

I’m considering a sleeve, an armband or a bracelet. My daughter has an armband that she designed herself, and I’ve always admired it. I wouldn’t get something quite as elaborate as hers (which includes a picture of her great-grandmother’s totem animal, the red-tailed hawk) but I would definitely have a talented artist design it (and, of course, pay her for her skills). That would be a reasonable compromise between visibility, size, and price.

But on the other hand, the idea of a bracelet appeals to me too. I never wore “real” bracelets much till fairly recently, but now I find myself picking one out nearly every day. Would I do as well with a permanent one? The older I get, the fewer real constraints there are on visible ink placement, and a bracelet would certainly be visible.

I suppose I’ll have to come up with a design with no red ink in it, just to be safe. Oh, and find a local artist. That’s going to be the fun part.

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By infmom, June 23, 2007 11:10 am

OK, so now you’ve chosen your design, chosen your artist, gone through with the tattoo process and you’re home again and enough time has passed that you can peel off the bandage, wash your new ink and admire it.

Now what?

Well, as with any healing skin wound, it’s going to weep. It’s going to itch. And later on, it’s going to peel. All of which are good reasons to grit your teeth and vow to keep your cotton-pickin’ hands OFF it. Do not scratch, rub, or try to peel yourself. What it boils down to is that you’re going to have to leave that new ink strictly alone if you want it to last.

The problem is that a new tattoo (again, like any other skin wound) is going to form a scab of sorts. (Show me one person who survived childhood without ever wanting to pick off a scab.) Scabs, being far less flexible than the underlying skin, tend to pull at their borders and break in the middle. That may lead to further scab formation. The scabs that form are likely to be colored the same as the underlying ink and it’s all the more tempting to pick at them to get rid of them once and for all.

In a word: DON’T.

If you pick those scabs off before they fall off naturally, you run the very real risk of pulling the ink off with them. Your tattoo will end up with holes in it and will look terrible. Why go to all the trouble and expense to get inked if you’re going to pick the thing to pieces afterwards? Grit your teeth. Keep your mitts off.

Keep using whatever aftercare product you chose. They will usually keep the scabs reasonably soft and less irritating. Wash the area gently with warm water at least once a day and gently pat it dry. You could follow that up with something like Bactine Hurt-Free Antiseptic Wash, which kills germs and also contains a mild topical anaesthetic that may dull the itch and prickle of healing skin. Once that’s dry, reapply your chosen aftercare product with a gentle hand.

The length of time it takes a new tattoo to heal depends entirely on the individual. Some people have smooth, irritation-free skin in a week. For some people the process takes longer, sometimes much longer. And in some cases, which I’ll address more fully in a future post, the skin may never properly heal at all.

Stay out of the sun while your skin is healing, and if your new tattoo is someplace that is normally visible when you’re outside, be sure to apply sunscreen forever after lest the sun fade the ink. (Most ink does fade and sometimes change color over time, which I’ll also talk about in more detail later on.)

The healing process is like getting the tattoo in the first place–endure a little discomfort now, enjoy your ink for a lifetime afterwards.

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