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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, March 27, 2008 10:24 am

I’m taking a night class, catching up on stuff I wanted to learn a long time ago. It’s an elementary machine shop class, and I usually get partnered with a man who’s about my age, who reminds me a lot of the character “Monk.”

Besides wanting to jump in and do everything for me, he apparently gets the heebie-jeebies looking at some of the other students in the class who are covered with various kinds of body art. Last night in class I was chatting with a (much younger) classmate who showed up with a septum piercing for the first time (or so I thought). It was one of those big silver horseshoe shaped rings that hangs down over the upper lip. I hadn’t noticed it before, so I asked if it was something new, and the young man smiled and said no, he’d had it for years, he just usually tucked the ring up inside his nose when he was in class. We chatted about that for a bit and then he moved off to work on something.

And that’s when “Mr. Monk” told me that he thinks that the way people decorate their bodies is a sure indication of their character. The implication being that people with big nose rings are in some way deficient.

I, of course, immediately let him know that I’m a tattooed person, and that I’d chosen to have my tattoos in places that could be covered up fairly easily, mainly because other people sometimes have a problem. Alas, I think I was being far too subtle.

Are our body decorations an indication of character? Well, perhaps to the extent that we multicolored people are independent thinkers who don’t want to just settle for whatever skin we happened to be given by Mother Nature. I don’t really understand why other people have a problem with body art–but then again, I don’t understand why my father said I couldn’t get my ears pierced because it would “look cheap” either.

I have been thinking about getting a more visible tattoo, probably a bracelet. The main things that have been holding me back are the cost of good tattoo work (I don’t mind paying it, it’s just that I don’t have anything in the budget right now) and the idea that it might be a problem for a potential employer. Yes, even at my age, and after taking early retirement from my last job, I still think about some HR person catching a glimpse of a tattoo and resolving to run my application through the shredder ASAP.

We have to wear protective clothing in the shop, but only on the upper half. Soon’s the weather gets warmer I’m switching to capris so at least my Egyptian ankle will show. And “Mr. Monk” is just going to have to like it or lump it. Perhaps an averse reaction to body art is an indicator of character too!

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By infmom, October 19, 2007 12:16 am

One of the free e-newsletters I get is from Bottom Line, purveyors of all kinds of interesting information. This one is called Daily Health News, and you can check it out here if you’re interested.

Nickel, a common culprit

Today’s newsletter dealt with the fact that allergy to nickel is becoming more and more common in the USA today. A sensitivity to nickel most often causes a raised, itchy skin rash, which can be quite severe. People can go along for years, coming in contact with nickel through their jewelry, and then all of a sudden they’ve got a rash under their treasured watch or ring or earrings like you wouldn’t believe. It can also, as I can attest, happen if you’ve got bare skin up against the inside of the snap in your jeans.

I got sensitized to nickel when I got my ears pierced for the first time 40 years ago. In those days, you just bought gold earrings of some kind and put them in while the piercings were healing and hoped for the best. My starter earrings weren’t that good. I got a crusty rash while the holes were healing (and had the unenviable task of pulling those first earrings out while the holes were only partway healed, and replacing them with other earrings that I had to sterilize myself as best I could). Forever after, I have had a reaction to nickel in anything that touches my skin for any length of time. (Clear nail polish makes a reasonable coating for earrings that you just can’t give up.)

Related metal allergens in tattoo ink

What I hadn’t known, and found most interesting, is that people with nickel sensitivity may also show a reaction to some kinds of tattoo ink. It is most common with green and blue inks, which contain chromium and cobalt. So if your watch band drives you nuts, you might have problems with your tattoos as well.

Just something to think about. We decorated people have to watch out for our health.

I’ve just summarized the article briefly, here, so if you want to read more I’d suggest checking out the Bottom Line Secrets Daily Health News web site.

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