LET THE HEALING BEGIN
I will never subject myself to 4 hours of tattooing again...when your body endures this much trauma it gets freaked out and sends multiple choice messages to fuck with your brain.
I have been inflicting this on myself for over 20 years and should be used to it...but I'm not.
Old conventional wisdom: Leave the fresh tat covered for 16 to 24 hours,after which rinse clean with a gentle soap and clean up to three times daily followed by a thin layer of antibiotic ointment.
New conventional wisdom: Remove bandage after 2 hours,take a hot soak to let the blood escape.Do not use antibiotic ointment...cover with a thin layer of lotion for 7 days.
wisdom that has not changed: Do not soak or otherwise cause the scab to come off too soon,it will fall off "by itself" in 7 to 14 days......
What they don't tell you: If you have tattooed a large area of your body you will experience discoloration of the surrounding skin,swelling and edema,redness that you cannot differentiate:Am I infected or just beat to shit? should I use antibiotic to stave off infection or just stick with the lotion and hope my (insert appendage here) doesn't fall off? Am I just being a pussy?Why am I having shooting pains and spontaneous unexplained itching and twitching?
It's just your body saying it doesn't appreciate being drilled by an 18 mag shader...which,head on looks something like this:
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add another row of 6 to that, and that's how many needles are running over your SHIN BONE at a high rate of speed....pushing in ink...invading your space on a level beyond personal.You never get used to it...never.