What are the risks of tattoos?

Tattoos, also known as tattoos, permanently inject pigments into the dermis through needles. There are rich blood vessels and nerves in the dermis, which can cause bleeding and pain. Fundamentally speaking, the process of tattooing is also a kind of trauma, which destroys the human skin barrier and allows foreign bodies to invade the human body. There are some health risks to pay attention to.

1. infection: infection can come from pathogens such as bacteria on one's own skin, but what is more serious is infectious diseases spread through unsterilized or replaced tattoo tools, such as AIDS, hepatitis C, hepatitis B and tetanus. For example, if the tattooist does not change the needle after tattooing hepatitis C carriers, or the disinfection is unfavorable, the virus may enter the blood of the next customer. In fact, tattoos are also regarded as a risk factor for HIV and hepatitis virus to spread through blood in medicine. Therefore, the American Blood Bank Association (AABB) even requires people with tattoos to donate blood one year later. In addition, check your skin before tattooing. If the skin has wounds, inflammation, ringworm, etc. Tattooing should not be carried out.

2. Allergy: tattoo pigments contain a variety of metal components, such as black, mainly ferroferric oxide; The red color can be mercury sulfide, cadmium selenide and iron oxide; Blue is mainly copper salt. These metal elements may cause allergies in people with allergic constitution, showing a rash. Although allergies rarely occur, once they occur, they are difficult to deal with because it is difficult to remove pigments immediately. What's more, sometimes allergic reactions may occur after receiving tattoos for several years.

3. Granuloma and keloid: The former is the inflammatory reaction of human body to foreign body (tattoo pigment), which is manifested as nodules with clear boundaries around foreign body; The latter is the proliferation of connective tissue around the wound during wound healing. Keloid patients have scars on their bodies, and they have more or less had the history of protruding scars after skin wound healing. Therefore, people who have had this situation should pay attention to it. After tattooing, there is a great chance of leaving a keloid, which is likely to make your tattoo pattern unrecognizable.

Figure: Granuloma caused by tattoo (image from Mayo Clinic website)

4. Contraindications to MRI: Some tattoos may cause reactions when doing MRI. Some analysts believe that this may be due to the influence of strong magnetic field on magnetic metals, which will produce some electric energy. For example, tattoos contain magnetic metallic iron (mainly black, brown, red, meat, yellow and orange pigments), especially a wide range of tattoo patterns, which will cause tattoo burning, pain, redness and deformation. Therefore, if you have tattoos, you need to inform your doctor when doing MRI to understand the potential risks. In addition, some permanent pigments will not only bring discomfort, but also affect imaging. In particular, it has been reported that patients wearing eyeliner will affect the image quality of eye MRI.

5. Pattern changes with time: Although the pattern will be satisfactory at first, with the passage of time, the increase of weight (including the weight increase caused by pregnancy) will make the skin change, swell and relax, thus making the tattoo pattern stretch, distort and become blurred. Therefore, you need to think twice before tattooing, and whether you can accept such a change after many years.

Make sure tattoos are safe.

Some developed countries have established relevant laws and regulations on the safety of tattoo industry. For example, tattoo artists need to receive health training and establish a sense of disinfection, and American tattoo artists need to receive training from the Red Cross or the US Department of Labor. For those countries and regions that have no relevant laws and regulations, you can only be advised to pay more attention to sanitary conditions when choosing a tattoo shop:

Make sure that the needles, plates and tattooist's gloves used for you are disposable, and ask whether the non-disposable appliances have been disinfected at high temperature, and whether other instruments that cannot be disinfected at high temperature, such as tattoo handles and operating tables, have been disinfected with disinfectant.

In fact, even a qualified tattoo shop will have potential risks. For example, in 20 12, New England magazine published a tattoo-related rash in the United States, involving Rochester and new york. * * * There are 19 patients infected with Mycobacterium chelonei, ranging in age from 18 to 48. After investigation, all patients had been tattooed in the same tattoo shop, and the skin with rash was in the area where new gray ink (diluted with black pigment) was used. Finally, it was found that the source of infection was not a tattoo parlor, but this gray ink, which was contaminated by Mycobacterium chelonei after being mixed in Arizona and repackaged.