HCV-hepatitis C- DON't get tatooed

[merryBe]

I warned my stepdaughter up one side ...and down the other...

DON"T get a tatoo...but she believed nada....now she has psoriasis...it started around the site of her tatoo and spread to all her body..and this leads to crippling arthritis. It is also ugly, disfiguring. So sad, and so preventable!!

Tatooes put the immune system into hyper drive, and expose thousands to hcv and aides every day.

Most "artists" and parlors don't autoclave (sterilize) their equipment properly. The estimate is that we may end up with 1 billion people (it's 170 million now) with HCV in 10 years chiefly due to this increased adulation and fascination society now has with these brandings.

Why are we not warning our youth, have no public service commercials, why we have no effort telling them not to expose themselves needlessly to these diseases is beyond me.  True, some will do what they want anyway, but should we at least be trying?

Maybe we should write our congressmen and the NIH???

mb

[IAmTheWalrus]

The only time the use of a harmful substance goes down in the population is when the population becomes educated to the point they are not enticed by the supposed "glamour" of the harmful substance and are willing to take action.

I agree with FlGuy: the government is not our nanny and certainly not parental proxies. Personal responsibility rules. But the government can regulate and educate as they do in the FDA,  etc. A warning at parlors certainly should be posted for the benefit of those (especially youngsters) who are unaware of the dangers. Everytime I order a steak, seafood or eggs I have to read the warning at the bottom of the menu about undercooked animal proteins whether or not the restaurant uses proper sanitary methods. Why not something similar in a tattoo parlor?

Education is the key. Have you seen the warnings they put on cigarette packs in some countries? I forget if it was in Israel or Canada (help me out here) where they put a picture of a diseased lung or other repulsive consequence of smoking on the packs of cigarettes.

[merryBe]

fguy= remember that the only time drug use went down in this country was during the Regan/Clinton campaigns...rememeber just say no, and the fried egg....this is your brain...this is your brain on drugs?????  well those public service messages actually worked, there was a steady decline during those years of drug use....which has steadily rose again since they were discontinued.

A stitch in time does save 9 and sometimes images, which kids do pay attention to can have an effect on their choices.
to not even try to educate about the worst epidemic in recorded history is just wrong.

diamond lil. true, the psoriasis is not contagious but it still was caused by the hundreds of punctures, and it may or may not be curable. Currently the only drug known to effect it is Embril which is highly liver toxic.

[Diamond_Lil]

And since psoriasis is caused by something in your own immune system, you cannot pass the condition on to others. Thus psoriasis itself is not contagious.  

[mj6000]

I think a law should be passed that requires tatoo parlors to post a sign warning of the risks of Hepatitis and other diseases. We have food warning labels..cigarette warning labels etc.

[GSDgirl]

I was 26 when I got my first tattoo.  I was so excited and showed my dad.  He was not excited or happy...............

I have something on my legs also.  Little (darker than my skin bumps) that I can scrape off with my finger nails.

Hope your grand daughter finds a solution Merry.

Denise

[nygirl7]

Don't feel bad as hard as I try my kids don't listen to me either.

But then I guess i didn't listen to my folks either or I wouldn't have ended up in this boat.  Youth indeed is wasted on the young.  All the "if only's" ..................

I'm sorry Merry I hope that a good derm doc can find something to help.   Inf left my legs looking like I have leprosy from some autoimmune sort of eczema - that's bad enough and I'm not even a kid!!!!!!!

[FlGuy]

What would be expected of Congress and NIH, to be better parents than parents?  The government is never the answer to a problem, they are creators of problems not solvers of problems.