I’m turning to the Dope for some medical information and would like to hear from folks in medicine as well as those with experience getting tattooed.
I got a new tattoo on Friday. It’s now Monday morning, and the tattoo is warm/hot to the touch. I don’t remember this from previous experiences. There is also a pink margin to one side of the tattoo, which I suspect is a local infection.
[ul]
[li]Is the warmth typical for a new tattoo (or any healing wound)?[/li][li]What would be typical local infections introduced through a wound?[/li][li]Do HIV or any of the hepatitis variants ever present as local infections?[/li][/ul]
I obviously cannot know whether the infection (if it is an infection) was introduced at the tattoo studio or after, so I’m not panicking. I’m going to see a doctor today. I remember having a bee-sting-related local infection once, and it was treated with antibiotics.
I am neither medical nor tattooed, but I have some experience with skin infections.
My WAG is that, assuming your tattoo guy used appropriate sterilization and/or disposable items for doing the work, the odds are that you picked up a staph or strep infection. A tattoo, after all, breaks the surface of the skin and both staph and strep are common as dirt. Literally. Hepatitis and HIV involve body fluid from someone else, and as I said, with modern clean tattooing technique that is highly unlikely. Staph and strep, though, live on everyone’s skin. Even if the tattoo area was properly cleaned the skin could have picked up a bug from your surroundings.
Of course, I am not a doctor, and good that you are going to see one. The earlier you take care of something like this the better off you are.
I hasten to add that staph/strep infections can be serious - there has been more than one thread on this forum about these sorts of things becoming quite the ordeal. I’m glad you got a doc appointment without much of a wait.
IANAD, but I have hundreds of hours of ink work. I usually use bacitracin/neomycin or some variant for a few days after a new tattoo, then I switch to Curel lotion. Some tattoos are more inflamed than others due to variations in technique of the artist. Personally, I’ve never seen infection, but all work is inflamed for 2 to 3 days.
It’s also possible that the OP is experiencing an allergic or other reaction to something in the tattoo ink. Hard to tell over the internet, after all.
I hope it’s nothing serious and/or resolved quickly.
Just a reminder that we don’t want posters to use the SDMB in lieu of actual doctors. The OP is going to a doctor, so I’m leaving this thread open, but let’s try to keep the conversation along the lines of general information about tattoos and infection, and avoid, “Here’s what you need to do, 11811.”