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Tattoo health risks: Why you should think before you ink
Philly.com ^

Posted on 06/02/2014 7:50:49 AM PDT by Phillyred

DALLAS-Thirteen needles are simultaneously zinging in and out of Adam Metzger’s shoulder.

The 27-year-old is unruffled. He stares unblinkingly out the storefront window of Taboo Tattoo, a studio in the Bishop Arts District. To his right, Cody Biggs shades blue into a square of the Texas state flag. His movements are sure, even.

The buzzing suddenly falls silent. Biggs pauses to dunk the handpiece into a thimble-sized plastic cup of ink, then turns back to his canvas. Metzger’s shoulder is pink and puffy, weeping streams of ink and blood.

“How are you doing, buddy?” Biggs asks, rubbing on ointment in counterclockwise circles.

“It doesn’t feel good, man,” Metzger responds. “But I’ve definitely felt worse pain.”

Plenty of people know what he’s been through. As of 2012, 1 in 5 adults had a tattoo, up from 14 percent in 2008, a Harris Interactive Poll found. And when safety standards are followed, tattoos are usually trouble-free.

But tattoos can pose health risks that many people might not consider:

Unsterilized tools or contaminated ink can lead to infection, scarring, blood-borne diseases and other, less-obvious issues.

“It’s becoming much more common, but you still have to be careful,” says Dr. Bryan Wasson, an internal medicine physician at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center at Irving, Texas. “A tattoo is like a minor surgery.

You clean and shave the skin like you’re going to operate. You use surgical tools. There are dangers. So be careful in your selection.”

During the procedure, a gun with needles punctures the top layer of the skin, depositing pigment in a deeper layer called the dermis. As the skin heals, the ink remains trapped below the surface.

“When you get a tattoo, you bleed,” said Dr. Donna Casey, an internal medical specialist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital...

(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bloodbornediseases; health; tattoos
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To: Phillyred

Theodore Dalrymple (a doctor) had a piece recently that there is a type of TB that can be contracted through tattoo ink and is undetectable until the victim is infected.

California passed a law regulating tattoo parlors that went into effect last July. Odd you can’t get your hair cut unless the person has 2000 hours of education leading to a license.

I grew up in a neighborhood where a few of my neighbors had numbers tattooed on their forearms. Any interest in a tattoo went right out the window then and there.

Odd, as we alledgedly become more civilized, (people want to engage in sexual perversion, tattoo and scarify their bodies, pierce their bodies, stretch their earlobes out of shape, and paint the cave walls (grafitti),) the more primitive they become.


21 posted on 06/02/2014 8:11:12 AM PDT by rey
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To: skeeter
RE :”It ain't only kids. I see all kinds of middle aged folks with em now. There's nothing like seeing a tramp stamp peeking over some size 10 yoga pants, or some pot bellied bald guy with a full sleeve.
Trying to regard their fading youth, I guess. “

They may have got them when younger too.

When I was a teen lots of bad things going on with high school kids and young adults, smoking, keg parties (drinking age was 18), drugs , but I rarely saw tattoos. Especially the big ugly ones,

It reminds me of that trash family show Rosanne.

22 posted on 06/02/2014 8:12:57 AM PDT by sickoflibs (Obama : 'The debate is over. The time for talk is over. I won. ')
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To: Phillyred

I am always intrigued by the people who spend whatever it takes to put tattoos on their backs where they can’t even see them. Then too, there’s the women who ink intimate places where no one would normally see them. I wonder if there’s some sort of temporary sexual thrill with having that done.


23 posted on 06/02/2014 8:13:26 AM PDT by Baynative (How much longer will the media be able to prop up this administration?)
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To: Phillyred
Leviticus 19:28...

Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor imprint any marks on you: I am the LORD.

24 posted on 06/02/2014 8:15:05 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Reddy

I do not think anyone is saying there should be a law. Tattoo yourself all you want, but do not expect to be treated as though you do not have one.

Someone will say you cannot judge a book by its cover. You certainly can and often you should. Chuckie’s swastika in the center of his forehead is fair warning not to invite him to Thanksgiving dinner.

Some people are clearly labeled poison.


25 posted on 06/02/2014 8:15:25 AM PDT by rey
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To: Kenny Bunk
http://heavy.com/comedy/2010/02/the-20-worst-tramp-stamps/

Enjoy.

26 posted on 06/02/2014 8:15:37 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk (Vote for a gay African Marxist for POTUS? Sure. What could go wrong?)
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To: soycd

Exactly. You want to be a nonconformist these days: Don’t get a tattoo. Don’t get piercings. Don’t destroy your ear lobes. Don’t wear your trousers half way down your ass.

Focus on getting grades, doing your homework, being polite and respectful. Go to church and get something out of it.

You will be the real non-conformist among your peers. And probably among the most successful.


27 posted on 06/02/2014 8:15:38 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: rey

add primitive “music” like rap to your list...


28 posted on 06/02/2014 8:15:49 AM PDT by Phillyred
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To: Phillyred; tx_eggman

In the words of Jimmy Buffet:

She was no marine back from the Philippines
She was their pride and joy, their incarnation
Her parents viewed the chief with shock and disbelief
Looking for some other explanation

The Indian on her back was poised for an attack
She said a tattoo is a badge of validation
But the truth of the matter is far more revealing
It’s a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

Permanent reminder of a temporary feeling
Amnesiac episodes that never go away
It’s no complex momemto it’s not set of revealing
Just a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling


29 posted on 06/02/2014 8:17:58 AM PDT by SpinnerWebb (IN-SAPORIBVS-SICVT-PVLLVM)
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To: mylife

Firebird Scrambler 650 Twin Carb, upswept exhaust pipes, only 500 imported that year, pretty Rare. From Shusters Cycle in Southington Ct. Sold my Royal Star 500 to get it. Still runs Great!


30 posted on 06/02/2014 8:19:04 AM PDT by ABN 505 (-)
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To: Snickering Hound

Hideous!! He should have sued the “artist”.


31 posted on 06/02/2014 8:20:04 AM PDT by PistolPaknMama
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To: headstamp 2

Some enterprising individual is going to develop a way to remove tattoos cheaply and easily.

And they will make a fortune.


32 posted on 06/02/2014 8:20:05 AM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: Phillyred; All
I love how the media and the pop culture push this crap day in and day out and never have to apologize and answer to the real world consequences they created.

My wife sees this in the ER all the time. Tattoos and infected piercings long after they've been done. Mess with your body and it messes with you.

33 posted on 06/02/2014 8:21:16 AM PDT by sr4402
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To: Phillyred

I think Tattoos were may more popular just a few years ago.

There is a tattoo parlor not far from here, sometimes I really wonder how they stay in business, it’s a bunch of them too. They took over a small wooded office building so the building itself is actually nice.

Maybe it’s a good business to get into but I don’t see it.


34 posted on 06/02/2014 8:21:46 AM PDT by BeadCounter
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To: unixfox

I agree.

Going to have a lot of older women cursing the day they got them.


35 posted on 06/02/2014 8:21:48 AM PDT by headstamp 2 (What would Scooby do?)
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To: Phillyred; All
I love how the media and the pop culture push this crap day in and day out and never have to apologize and answer to the real world consequences they created.

My wife sees this in the ER all the time. Tattoos and infected piercings long after they've been done. Mess with your body and it messes with you.

36 posted on 06/02/2014 8:21:59 AM PDT by sr4402
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To: rey
Dalrymple is excellent.
37 posted on 06/02/2014 8:22:24 AM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: Reddy

Actually, I also could not care less, but as these folks age, their skin will become a sorrowful, ineradicable, washed out mess.


38 posted on 06/02/2014 8:22:30 AM PDT by Banjoguy
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To: SpinnerWebb

“It’s a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling”

So very true. I never thought getting a tatto was a good idea. It binds you emotionally to the past or makes you captive to an idea/thought/emotion and prevents you from moving forward. I know others have different views on tattos. I just never wanted to be bound by one.


39 posted on 06/02/2014 8:23:23 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: mylife

How did I manage to cross the world in submarines, planes and tanks and never get a damned tattoo?

__________

Intelligence?


40 posted on 06/02/2014 8:23:24 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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