Tattoos hurt. Period. Someone is sticking thousands of holes in you and injecting your body with a foreign substance. I hope you don’t expect that to feel good.

The thing is that tattoos are painful, but it is a tolerable painful. I have about 70% of my body covered in tattoos. ALL of them hurt. Some worse than others, but as a tattoo artist, one thing I’ve learned over 20 years of tattooing is that everyone is different. Places that hurt me so bad I was nearly at my pain thresh-hold didn’t affect the next person at all. While tattoos I feel asleep while getting done made the next person scream.

The inside of the wrist stung quite a bit, but not anywhere near as bad as other places…plus it swells up for a couple of days.

When getting tattooed, you simply have to get in the mindset that it hurts and your willing to go through it. You talk about sitting for a tattoo for 45 minutes to an hour. A good amount of the work I’ve done has been in excess of three to five hour settings. A libra sign probably won’t take a half hour. Its nothing.

You are on a website for tattooists and tattoo enthusiasts, body piercers, and piercing enthusiasts. you must understand that for many of us, 45 minutes is laughable. Toughen up. Do it, or don’t, but don’t be a wuss.

my wrist tattoo didnt hurt much at all but did swell up while healing .

Hi

Actually it is not the artery that causes the pain you have a large cluster of pain receptors because of the high concentration of nerves.

This means that it will sting and swell up you prob at worst may grit your teeth from time to time or at best have a moderate-medium discomfort.

From my studies of talking with a sample of 100 who had wrist tattoos it varies on the pain factor of 5. (taking into account pain is very subjective so general guide only)

1 Is asleep and feel next to nothing.

2. Slight sting.

3. Stinging to light burning sensation. (Mild discomfort)

4. Burning sensation (mild to lower moderate discomfort)

5. Burning sting that you can really feel (Moderate discomfort)

6. Deep burning/sting what is known as the lip presser as you have to concentrate to block it out (Tolerable but unpleasant moderate discomfort).

7. Teeth gritter – Starting to move into the realms of high discomfort and large amount of pain.

8. The eye wetter – tears of pain start to form lot of teeth gritting maybe some amount of swearing. High pain factor.

9. The swearer – This is where you think it cannot get much worse and swearing and crying is common part of the tattoo. Lots of pain blood and tears.

10. The screamer – You think you are being doused in a vat of molten lead and you are in a world of pain. This is where the body is at risk of going into shock of the pain and loss of blood. These are usually associated with marathon sessions of 6-10+ hours on areas that only the truly dedicated would put themselves through. 😉

Obviously everybody feels tattoos differently. I have only seen a couple of hundred that would rate a 10 because of the sheer amount of size and detail and is usually a serious body suit addition of the ribs pelvis and genetalia, or the eyeballs.

Interestingly most were tattoo artists who had pieces that would have most ppl screaming to be killed or strapped down and drugged to have it done. I have seen a few from serious body mod enthusiasts and my respect goes to them I couldnt go through that sort of work.

Again I am not saying that others will not have experienced a 10 on smaller tattoos – I am just saying from my own small studies.

Your wrist will be fine and we don’t mean to say you are a pussy – far from it you are braver than 75% of the world because you are getting inked.

Just on the flipside many ppl on here have extensive and 100’s hours of ink (hell i feel naked compared to some peeps on here with my own ink) so they may not feel the same concerns you have.

Post up when you are done. Would love to see it.

Take Care
Matthew

I’m getting one on my inner left wrist as well quite soon(when the summer ends) and i’m also a bit worried, not with the pain directlly, as i can see its bearable, but with the unknow of it, of not knowing what kind of pain it is, but i guess Sherav’s post helped quite a bit on that matter:)