What are the bad things about tattoos?

Answer 1

If you're allergic to the ink, you'll know within the first few minutes of getting tattooed. I don't know of any serious allergic reactions associated with tattoo ink but it's certainly a question to bring up ahead of time. I'm guessing it's just really irritating and itchy. I'm also guessing there's an alternative ink that can be used.

If the tattoo gets infected, it can compromise the design but again, i have never heard of a serious complication resulting from a tattoo infection. Theoretically, gangrene is possible but you'd be an idiot to let an infection go that far in this day and age. Keep the tattoo clean and use pure soap and lotion and you'll be fine.

Other risks are social in nature.

Depending on the location of your tattoo and its content, the ol' job search might become a newly political experience for you. Some places just will not hire bad asses for some reason but happily, with the burgeoning fashionability of tattoos, the prejudices against them are beginning to fade. Much like Grandpa's unmentionable Navy Lady.

You might regret your choice of design afterwards. This is why a tattoo should NEVER be an impulse buy. Besides, you probably won't get a walk-in appointment anyway.

It might end up being more expensive than you had expected. Some tattoo places will agree to a payment plan for very large pieces like sleeves and back pieces, but don't count on it and ask beforehand.

Answer 2

Plenty. Let's start off with keloids which are a type of ugly scar. Next lets talk and think about allergic reactions to the inks which are not infrequent at all. Unless extremely sterile practices are followed when the tat is applied you may need to study up on such wonderful diseases as Hepatitis in all of its' many wonderful variations, HIV ( aids ), MSRV ( Methylcillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), and plain old simple infections. MSRV by the way is a variation in "flesh eating bacteria" which is becoming a lot more common these days than people in the medical industry would have you believe. It is treatable: USUALLY, but not always. If you DO get one of these for any reason, not just limited to tattoos, you're liable to have a rough go of it and may end up with a hole in your flesh up to an inch or so deep before the docs get it under control. If they do... If you decide at a later date that you really don't like your tat after all, then you're going to be learning about such things as "skin grafts", excision ( having the thing hacked out bodily ), dermabrasion ( having the tat SANDED off with tiny wire brushes and sanding disks, and "laser treatments". And then there's the old time favorite tattoo removal method called "salabrasion". Salabrasion involves using a rock salt paste and a firm pad to literally grind off the first two layers of your skin in order to get down to where the ink is. Sounds like fun, right? Remember the old saying "pouring salt into an open wound"? Salabrasion is still used to remove tats today, and you can bet it gives new meaning to that old saying. And then there's the new "laser removal" treatments. Sounds nice and simple right? Wrong. It can take months of treatments to "remove" a tattoo with lasers and many times the result is just a tat that is a lot lighter in color that it was before treatment. None of this is cheap either. It can cost as much as A HUNDRED TIMES as much to get a tat removed as it cost to put it on.

Answer 3

They will really begin to sting if you put them in an MRI Scanner