I was addicted to drawing on myself for three years yr 12 it got out of control I was drawing wuith higlighter's on me from shoulder to fingernails. my arm sometimes hurt. Is that ink posioning.?

Answer 1

16 years old now and my drawing craze is as bad as its ever been. Mostly I've managed to restrict myself recently by confining my madness on paper, but through my middle school years, I would often come home with both of my arms and part of my face completely covered in sharpie (yeah, sharpie. not highlighters, but permanent marker).

I've looked into this because I was afraid of the same thing. The joints in my arms would ache and my fingers would be sore. The skin would be partially numb, and when I didn't have colorful mosaics down my limbs, there would often be long scratches and welts down them because I would drag my fingernails down them. It was the bones gritting against one another and the constant ache that really bothered me, though- and that was what I figured had to be the sharpie finally getting to me.

Been there. Don't worry about it so much. It's not ink poisoning.

Looking back on it, I can name where all my symptoms came from. The soreness was from holding my arms completely still at strange angles for so long in order to draw on those hard-to-reach places. The numbness of the skin was from so much friction being applied to it over such an extreme length of time. The ache was something natural, like the body complaining (damn limbs. such whiners...) about the stress I was putting it through with my little 'addiction'. Ink poisoning became a mainstream concern due to the risk of people drinking printer ink cartridges, not drawing on themselves.

Aren't unfounded concerns always the best? :)

Hope this helped.