tortoisegirl | (no subject)

Healing the tattoo is going so so badly. It's been gross for days now, with heavy scabbing that made the dots look like cigarette burns, but now that the scabs are coming off the color is coming off too. Of the 18 dots, 7 of them actually have brown color, and the rest, just. Nothing. Just red, swollen circles with no color at all, like you'd see with a plain old healing scab. I'm not even going to post a picture because first of all it's creepy looking, a cluster of pock marks on my arm, and ugh, there's just nothing to show off. No tattoos. I'm probably going to end up with a bunch of scars.

I'll go back to the shop on Friday to ask about why this happened and what can be done. But I'm pessimistic and I'm expecting a fight. I'm afraid they'll say I did something wrong in healing it so it's my own fault and there's nothing to do about it, tough luck, enjoy your scars. Even if the tattoos can be redone (which wouldn't be for a while anyway I guess since the marks would have to heal first, and even then can they do it over the healed skin?) I don't know the etiquette of getting retouches/corrections. Will they charge me for a retouch, because I can't afford to pay the full price again. I don't know. I could seriously cry over this. I was so excited about this tattoo and now it's gone :(

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is there a tattoo community here on LJ where you can ask a question? :(

There is, though I'm going to the tattoo shop today to show the artist and check my options and hopefully it'll be resolved there. I've been a member of

bodymods for a while and I'll likely end up making a post about this there. They like when people post their experiences, and I guess a failed tattoo experience would be a warning for others, or at least something to think about. They might be able to help me figure why this happened in the first place and how to avoid it again.

Best to be cautious about any further modifications to your current tattoos. 1. You need to let them fully heal. 2. You might not be a good candidate for tatts. 3. You don't want to just fly off the handle and made a bad decision about altering the current tatts that you might regret later on.

It turns out it the size and colors that caused the problems, but not all hope is lost :) I certainly wasn't going in expecting to get something done to them because, yeah, nowhere near healed. It was mostly to figure what was happening and whether it could eventually be fixed and to make sure I wasn't doing anything to make it worse.

Edited 2010-04-10 00:06 (UTC)