A tattoo is essentially a wound when it is still fresh and due to the bruising experienced during the process of getting it, the skin will usually release a fluid that creates droplets on its surface. Minute blood particles would also be present in this fluid and when the fluid dries up they end up looking like tiny black specs on the surface of your tattoo. Now all this usually happens when you do not disturb the tattoo and the bruises. The fluid then dries along the surface together with the particles and tends to forma scab. Over a short period of time the skin would heal but if you interrupt or disturb the process you might end up having to cope with an infected tattoo.
Minimal damage would more or less meet with a rate of healing which is proportional to the amount of moisture that the tattoo is exposed to. A number of healing ointments can be used to promote the needed atmosphere required for the tattoo to heal and these ointments include: Bacitracin Zinc, A & D Ointment and Petroleum. Petroleum found in all these products tends to mean that air or water will not penetrate the skin surface, what this then results in is the best healing situation.
When a tattoo has just been finished, no oozing occurs and the skin surface is still dry one way or the other. The application of a petroleum based product would mean the appearance of droplets of fluid because of the body’s production of exudates. Exudates are needed in order to create an environment which tends to help with the quick healing of tattoos. Wounds which are maintained in a moist environment with exudates tend to suffer lesser chances of getting infected than dry wounds.
It was formerly thought that petroleum based ointments affected a tattoo in a negative manner by causing the ink to dissolve from the skin but scientific research has proven that this fact is not true. The constant application of antibacterial medication is also not good for the healing process. You can apply ointment and plastic wrapping to your tattoo when you go to sleep or go to bathe for a number of days as this will help protect your tattoo under these circumstances.
Sometimes tattoo infection tends to occur for various reasons. Some of the symptoms which may mean that your tattoo is infected are listed as follows: Increased pain, swelling, redness, heat, or tenderness around the tattoo, red streaks extending from the area, pus coming from the wound, swollen or tender lymph nodes, or fever. These are all indications of the presence of an infection.
Infection may start at the tattoo and usually clear or clear-yellow fluid that drains from an infected tattoo may change to creamy yellow, brown, or red or look or smell like pus. Infection may also occur deep inside the wound, with few noticeable signs at the site. Pain and swelling may develop. This is a definite sign that you have to heal the infected tattoo.
The skin over a tattoo may heal while an infection is present in the wound, causing a more serious infection, such as an abscess. If you do not heal your infected tattoo it can spread to an infection within the bones, the joints or even become sepsis, which is an infection in the whole body.
Antibiotics are usually needed to heal an infected tattoo but a doctor might also recommend blood tests as well and suggest that the infected tattoo be kept as dry as possible. Water tends to affect healing tattoos adversely.
