I got a very simple kanji design done on my upper right arm in September of '07. It barely bled at all and healed quickly.
However, in the nine months since I got the tattoo, the texture that I initially attributed to normal swelling has never left. I don’t mean that you can actually see the tattooed area raised above the rest of my arm, but you can certainly feel it if you run your hand there. It doesn’t hurt, nor is it sensitive to the touch in any way. But it’s not my imagination, as my wife can attest to.
Of the other folks I know who have tattoos, including my wife, no one else can so easily feel where their tattoo is, especially after so much time passing. So I’m just wondering if anyone else out there has this issue, or has any ideas of why I might be different in that regard.
A friend of mine has many tattoos; most are smooth to the touch. If your eyes are closed you can barely tell by touch. Some are a little textured, it depends on where you have them. I only have one (on my ribcage) that is textured: skin layer over them is thin.
There’s also a difference in the end result of a ‘filled’ tattoo to an outline.
My tattoo is slightly raised, and I got it two or three years ago. It’s not bulging out or anything, but if you ran your hand over my shoulder with your eyes closed you’d probably think something was amiss.
Mine is somewhat raised and I have noticed when my allergies are really bad it will swell up a bit more and get itchy. I have very sensitive skin. I’ve heard this attributed to the tattoo artist having a heavy hand. From what I have heard it’s really a sign of an inexperienced artist. I don’t mind it, because I’m sure a good part of it is my sensitive skin.
The one on my back is still raised to this day, and I’ve had it for almost nine years now. The one on my leg raises up for a few hours after I shave. The one on my wrist never raised after the initial swelling went down. shrug I think it’s kinda cool.
I started a thread about something similar a few years back. I have three tattoos, all of them are compleatly smooth. I got a misquitto bite on one of them once and scratched only that one area of the tattoo for a while. The whole thing raised up just like the day I got it. It was kinda neat.
You’re destroying my reputation for being darkly mysterious, I hope you know.
Anyway, I have the symbols for sun and moon. My wife got the same tattoo years earlier, and I thought it would be a nice surprise for her for me to get the same (although not in the same place). She just added to hers a couple of weekends ago, embellishing it with very pretty flowers.
I will NOT be trying to keep pace with her on that.
I’ve got two tattoos, one on each arm, and they seem to rise up and die down with the weather. Sometimes one side comes up, sometimes the other. The one done with a machine definitely raises more often than the bamboo tattoo though.
