Yes, it's normal to feel sick, tired, or have flu-like symptoms (like chills, aches, fever) after a tattoo, a common phenomenon called "tattoo flu," due to your body's immune response to the trauma and foreign ink, especially after long sessions; however, severe or worsening symptoms like intense fever, pus, or prolonged illness warrant a doctor's visit as they can signal an infection.
Tattoo Flu Symptoms: What to Expect
But a low-grade fever is normal while your body is healing. Your immune system and tattoos aren't seeing eye to eye just yet. So, your immune system is working extra hard to compensate. This is why you might feel wiped out.
If you have any questions or concerns, it's important to speak to your tattoo artist, or seek medical attention if anything serious or infections show up. As the flu typically lasts for a couple of days but will lessen each day.
Research has found that certain substances in tattoo ink can be identified by immune cells and carried to the lymph nodes, where they can accumulate over time.
A skin infection is possible after getting a tattoo. An infection might be due to contaminated ink or equipment that isn't sterilized correctly. Getting a tattoo at a studio that doesn't follow good safety steps also can raise your risk of a skin infection.
Symptoms can include:
Skin rejecting tattoo ink often shows as persistent itching, redness, swelling, and bumpy or scaly patches, sometimes with blisters or oozing, which can appear days, months, or even years later, often linked to certain colors like red ink. This reaction, known as allergic contact dermatitis or a photosensitivity reaction, signals your immune system is overreacting to the pigment, requiring a dermatologist's evaluation if it's severe or prolonged.
Yes, you can donate blood if you have tattoos
The same rules also apply to ear and body piercings.
For some, getting a tattoo can be stressful and a little painful. Stress from anxiety or pain may raise your heart rate and blood pressure. For people with certain types of heart disease, this can be dangerous. It's important to understand how your heart condition might react to this increased stress.
Unfortunately, tattoo inks have been reported to cause adverse reactions such as skin inflammations, skin infections, allergic reactions, foreign body reactions, blood-borne diseases, skin reactions to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), autoimmune diseases, and cancers.
Signs of a Tattoo Infection
After getting a tattoo, avoid scratching/picking, submerging in water (baths, pools, hot tubs), direct sun exposure, tight clothing, and harsh soaps or petroleum jelly; instead, keep it clean with mild soap, moisturize lightly with artist-recommended lotion, and let it heal undisturbed to prevent infection and preserve the ink. Always follow your tattoo artist's specific aftercare instructions for best results.
Among clinical manifestation of TSS, the typical signs and symptoms are a high fever over 38.9°C, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, myalgias, and a diffuse macular rash characterized as sunburn.
(NEXSTAR) – Your next tattoo session might leave you with a case of the “tattoo flu.” The “tattoo flu,” according to people who say they've experienced the phenomenon, is a malaise that sometimes afflicts tattoo recipients who get larger tattoos, or who sit for an especially lengthy tattoo sessions.
In this study, we characterized the immune responses to the tattoo ink accumulating in the lymph nodes (LNs). This is very relevant as tattoo ink commonly reaches and persists in this organ in most tattooed subjects, often lifelong.
Cardiologic effects
There are several case reports indicative for a risk for a bacterial endocarditis in correlation with receiving a tattoo [28, 45–51].
Hero Ingredients Your Skin Loves
Great tattoo ointments use skin-loving ingredients that help lock in moisture, soothe irritation, and boost healing. Vitamin E stands out for its antioxidant power, helping your skin recover and keeping scarring at bay.
Tattoos naturally change with age due to environmental exposure and your body's natural processes. While some people love the vintage look of older tattoos, others see fading, distortion, or blurring as reasons to remove them. Natural Fading: Sunlight is the primary culprit behind fading tattoos.
Tattoos are generally safe, but they aren't risk-free. Here's what to consider before going under the needle. Practicing dermatology doesn't just involve treating rashes and sunburns and administering cosmetic injectables.
Three-Month Waiting Period
These wait-time requirements for both tattoos and piercings are related to concerns about hepatitis which can easily be transmitted from donors to patients through transfusion. All blood donations are tested for hepatitis B and hepatitis C with several different tests.
If you have a medical problem such as heart disease, allergies, diabetes, skin problems like eczema or psoriasis, a weak immune system, or a bleeding problem, talk to your doctor before getting a tattoo. Also, if you get keloids (an overgrowth of scar tissue) you probably should not get a tattoo.
Conclusion. Clinicians should be alert to the potential capacity of tattoo inks to act as triggers of systemic anaphylaxis.
It's normal for a brand new tattoo to have some redness around it, and appear swollen for a day or two, especially if it's very large or in a sensitive area. But if the redness and swelling persists for more than a couple of days, or if it gets worse and begins to feel more tender, this could be a cause for concern.
It may come as a surprise, but you can be allergic to tattoo ink. Reactions can vary, with some people experiencing itching or swelling that mimics flu symptoms. Red and yellow inks are often culprits, but any color could potentially cause a reaction.
Signs or symptoms of poisoning may include: