By: Nyima Sillah
Dr. Musa Marena, Obstetrician and Gynecologist at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital has disclosed that if instruments that are used for Tattooing are not sterilized, they can be prone to infections that could breach from hepatitis infections, HIV infections, or any other blood-borne infections.
In an interview with The Voice on Tuesday, Dr. Marena said: “Some of these tattoos are permanent, you may like the astatic nature of your skin now, but later on, you might change your mind and it is difficult for you to remove some of these tattoos. Also, it affects the static of the skin which means that the color of the nature of the skin is also affected.”
He informed that the chemical used for some of the tattoo ingredients might not be known and those chemicals could as well be absorbed into the body causing some kidney diseases and liver diseases or even some heart problems. “The effect of tattoos is an ongoing issue that medical people are looking into and if it is not done properly and it is not done with care it can harm the individual,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the issue of tattoos has been with human beings for a long time especially in the African Tradition when ceremonies are coming, they have what is called henna which people apply with some architecture on their skins and those are temporal and usually don’t penetrate the skin.
“As for the western Tattoo which is just the recent and is usually permanent is something that is imbibed in the skin and if you look at the most important ingredient in it is colour and those colours come with some chemicals and some people might be allergic to the colour,” he said.
However, he noted that the first issue that comes with a tattoo is the effect of the Tattoo itself, adding that when one Tattoos him/herself, it means that the person is causing pain on the skin which is somehow and some degree of trauma on the skin and if the person is allergic to the colour, he/she will have some skin reactions.
Considering its bad effects, he said when some people do tattoo the whole area of the skin is swollen and that can even cause an anaphoric reaction which is usually a reaction that can lead to a respiratory arrest.
“The other effect is that the skin has some degree of protection which protects humans from harm, injury, infections, etc. so when that area is tattooed, it may even reduce that protective effect of the skin,” Marena disclosed.