Ian Moone

How much does a navel piercing cost at Monster Tattoo?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:27:27 -0600

It depends on the metal used. For surgical steel its $40, for titanium it’s $60.

If i want to come get my nose repierced do I need to make an appt ?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:25:24 -0600

For me, no, but it never hurts to call and ask because not all piercers have this policy.

A word about titanium....

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:18:05 -0600

I use both grade 5 and 23 titanium with my piercings as an upgrade for people with a nickel sensitivity or a preference towards it. Many will cry that grade 5 is inferior and cannot be used in piercings. This is…. not exactly true. At all. We’ll kill this one with science….

Technically speaking, grade 23 and 5 are variations of the same alloy - TI6AL4V (titanium alloyed with 6% aluminum and 4% vanadium). The difference between grades comes from the different oxygen content in each of them (0.13% in grade 23, 0.20% in grade 5) which modify some of the basic alloy mechanical properties such as strength and toughness. It’s difficult to say which one is better, regarding a jewelry item. Grade 23 is more malleable, while grade 5 has more strength. However, it is highly unlikely that a nose ring used in normal circumstances will be put under such stress factors for these differences to become noticeable. There is no difference between grades as regarding hypoallergenic properties, meaning they are both virtually allergy free.

So there you go. Same metal with a different oxygen content.

How long do i need to wait to get my nose re-pierced after my piercing is halfway closed I took it out and forget to put the clear one in for work and now i can't get anything in?

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:18:14 -0600

Depends on how long it was pierced for. I generally recommend about two weeks at least.

Things were getting way too serious there for a moment. My...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:14:00 -0600

Things were getting way too serious there for a moment.

My apologies.

NO CASE OF AIDS TRANSMISSION EVER DOCUMENTED IN A U.S. TATTOO STUDIO

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:56:00 -0600

You are more likely to contract a disease from your dentist than your tattoo artist. Stupid? Yeah, but it’s true….

The health risks associated with commercial tattooing are often exaggerated when individuals or groups mount campaigns to prohibit the opening of tattoo shops in their community, according to news accounts from across the U.S.

By the mid 1990s, according toU.S. News & World Report,tattooing had become one of America’s fastest growing categories of retail business. There were now and estimated 15,000 tattoo studios in operation as the once-taboo practice of body-marking continued to gain broader acceptance and popularity throughout mainstream society.

As part of this cultural change, growing numbers of professional tattoo artists are opening — and attempting to open — studios in middle-class cities and towns that have never had such establishments in their business districts.

Inaccurate Risk Allegations

Reports indicate that the ensuing public debate routinely includes grossly inaccurate pronouncements about the health risks of tattooing. Some local newspapers and TV stations have stated, implied or suggested in their reports that tattooing may involve unusually high risks related to the transmission of such diseases as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Letters to the editor in some publications have often flatly stated that tattoo shops are major sources for AIDS and Hepatitis. For instance, one letter to a community newspaper in southern New Jersey charged that tattooing was involved in “the terrible price paid by loss of human life to AIDS” and went on to mention Hepatitis in a similar manner.

In response, local New Jersey tattoo artist Patrick Levins wrote: “While I understand how the debate about America’s shifting cultural attitudes toward tattooing can get emotional, I think responsible citizens will agree it’s important to address such health issues factually and logically.”

Federal Disease Experts

One place where local citizens and journalists can find authoritative information about the epidemiology — or the transmission and risk — of AIDS and Hepatitis is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

CDC is the nation’s foremost authority on communicable diseases. It plays the leading role in investigating and documenting the patterns and causes of AIDS and Hepatitis throughout the United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., the CDC maintains a large World-Wide Web site (www.cdc.gov) on which it regularly publishes and permanently archives in-depth information about its findings. It also makes its data available for free to newspapers, local libraries, public health agencies and any local government official or citizen who requests it.

CDC categorizes tattooists as “personal service workers” along with hairdressers, barbers, manicurists, acupuncturists, and massage therapists. Since the early 1980s, this overall category of workers has received intense scrutiny in ongoing CDC investigations of how the HIV virus that causes AIDS is spread.

Brief but Dramatic: CDC AIDS Data

The CDC summary data about tattooing and HIV is as brief as it is dramatic. In its HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports, CDC has consistently noted that it has documented “no cases of HIV transmission through tattooing” anywhere in the country since it began tracking such data in 1985 [1]. By comparison, there have been at least 7 cases of HIV transmission associated with dentists and dental workers.

Hepatitis: More Dentists Than Tattoos

About hepatitis: Of the 13,387 annual cases of hepatitis detailed in the most recent CDC report, 12 are associated with tattoo studios. By comparison, 43 cases — or better than 300% more — are associated with dental offices [2].

Both numbers would appear to represent low levels of hepatitis risk — a risk that has been further reduced by new safety procedures required by state law of both dental offices and tattoo studios.

Some political pundits have noted that, given the statistics, community activists who are sincerely concerned about the potential spread of AIDS or hepatitis would do better to concentrate on local dentists rather than local prospective tattoo shop operators.

Other observers point out that while it is important to be vigilant for potential community health problems, there is no documentable basis to support public allegations that the process of contemporary commercial tattooing is an unreasonably disease-prone one.

~ ~ ~

[1] The HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report is published regularly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent, published in December, 1997, is entitled “Estimated incidence of AIDS and deaths of persons with AIDS, adjusted for delays in reporting, by quarter-year of diagnosis/death, United States, January 1985 through June 1997.”

[2] Hepatitis Surveillance, Report Number 56, April, 1996, Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Your cousin's sterile pen...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:48:18 -0600

One of the things I hear most from people getting work out of the house is, “but he took it out of a package.” Awesome. My favorite response is to ask if they’ve ever seen a sterile pen and toss one in a package and hand it to them.

Understanding doesn’t take long to cross their face.

It is very important you ask to see the package your jewelry and needle come from. A true professional will take no offense and will more than likely be overjoyed that you were educated enough to ask. If their response is negative, leave. It is always your right to walk out. This is a statement I will repeat a good many times in my writing.

There is sterile packaging that differs from the following; your piercer should explain them to you when asked.

-IM

Typical Layout for Indicators.« These 2 Arrows react to Steam Processing turning brown « These 2 Arrows react to Gas Processing turning to gold/brown.
The Steam reactive Arrows change
to Dark Brown when steam processed.
The Gas reactive Arrows change
to Golden when EO Gas Sterilized. Indicators on bags
as illustrated above a change in color shows that it was in your sterilizer and went through a cycle. The indicators usually only measure one parameter and are not meant to prove sterilization.

The “arrow” indicators that are printed on bags are not Biological Spore Tests
and do not prove sterilization, they only show that the items were processed.

Sterilizers must be spore tested.

Contact your Health Department to find out how often they require testing.

The assumption is: If the previous spore test passed and the current test also passes, so long as each run was monitored for performance, everything run in between will also be safe to use.

If a spore test fails: all items processed since the last successful test are considered suspect and should be recalled or investigated. A failed sterilizer is to be spore tested with 3 consecutive loads that pass before the unit is allowed back into regular periodic testing.

4 Parameters for Steam sterilization:

External heat source sterilizers must sterilize every load to be considered safe to use. Sterilizers that require human adjustment of sterilization parameters during use, such as manually watching a clock, or regulating the temperature must be spore tested for each load because there is no way test the human operator for performance conformity.

The items processed must be kept in quarantine until a negative-growth result has been obtained. Items “stove-top” external heat sterilized are not considered safe to use until that run has been spore tested.

Sterility Assurance means that repeated biological spore testing consistently produces negative spore test results. When the processed spore test is incubated and nothing grows, you killed or inactivated the test spores. When the spore tests consistently pass time after time, the processed items are considered safe to use.

Implantable items.
Every item to be implanted must be biologically tested before being considered safe to use.

Flash Sterilizers are inappropriate.
Sterilizers that sterilize unwrapped instruments in a few minutes are not appropriate for Tattoo or Piercing because there is no means of testing. They are for emergency use specifically made for an operating room when an instrument becomes contaminated during an operation when a replacement is not available. They are not used for routine processing.

All new, moved or repaired sterilizers must have 3 negative (no growth) spore tests before being put into routine periodic-testing use.

-IM

Universal Precautions or 'So you all have the plague'

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:35:00 -0600

Universal Precautions

Standards - 29 CFR 1910.1030(b)
Universal Precautions is an approach to infection control. According to the concept of Universal Precautions, all human blood and certain human body fluids are treated as if known to be infectious for HIV, HBV, and other bloodborne pathogens.

CDC, Update OpCit “…In universal precautions, all blood is assumed to be potentially infective for bloodborne pathogens…” OpCit Summary p.70

What does this mean? This means that everyone you ever meet that you don’t personally know (and most of the ones you do) are diseased. Or rather, to be considered so. The idea is that by assuming that each person you come in contact with is infectious, the safer your practice will be.

You are more careful about contamination if you assume someone has Hep C.

Because sometimes they do.

And half of them don’t even know it.

What’s a bloodbourne pathogen?

blood-borne pathogens,

n.pl pathogenic microorganisms that are present in human blood and cause disease in humans.

That. It’s the stuff in your blood that makes you get sick. And you should expect the same standard you would expect from a hospital as from a tattoo artist or piercer.

Why?

OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Regulations (Standards) apply to tattoo and piercing.

“The scope and application of the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard is dependent on reasonably anticipated occupational exposure to blood and other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). Since tattooing and piercing generate blood, workers in this industry would fall under the scope of the standard.”
Standard Interpretations 07/29/2002 - Applicability of the Bloodborne Pathogens standard to the tattoo and body piercing industries. OSHA

“The scope of the regulation should not be based on employment in one or a few specified industries….Healthcare workers may therefore be most commonly at risk, but it is their blood exposure, not the industry in which they are exposed, that places them at risk. Regardless of the industry in which they may be exposed, all workers with reasonably anticipated occupational exposure to blood or OPIM should be included in the scope of this rule.
(CDC/NIOSH, Ex 20-634, p.3)” Section 9 -IX Summary and Explanation of the Standard p.2

Center for Disease Control

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:17:28 -0600

Center for Disease Control:

Current info on infection and infection control, as well as statistics.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with..."

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:15:25 -0600

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. -Robert A. Heinlein”