Hemophilia, diabetes, heart conditions, and other allergies may affect your ability to get or heal a tattoo.

Below, the reasons that various conditions require special care when receiving a tattoo.

In the case of hemophilia, the tattoo process could result in the client's death from bleeding out if they do not take the proper precautions and take a coagulant before and during the tattoo appointment.  The last thing anyone wants is someone bleeding profusely from a tattoo!

If you have diabetes you will need to make an informed decision about placement, and also give your tattoo artist a heads up in the case of the client getting lightheaded from low blood sugar during the tattoo process.

Because circulation is often a problem for diabetics, tattoo artists will recommend getting the tattoo higher up on the arm or leg, or on the torso to make sure that there will be less or no complications during the healing process.  They will also be sure to have glucose tabs or some kind of sugary drink or snack on hand while the client is being tattooed to rescue them if they do start to have a crash in blood sugar.

Heart conditions can come with all kinds of medications, and some of these thin the blood, which is something that a tattoo artist needs to know.  While it is rare that heart medication would cause the kind of bleeding seen in hemophiliacs, tattooing an excessive bleeder is more risky than tattooing the average person.  There is more chance of the tattoo artist being exposed to potentially infectious materials, and the tattoo itself is likely to heal more patchy than if the client was not bleeding as much.

This is because the blood is pushing out the ink as you are applying it, and the tattoo artist can only go over a single area of the skin so many times before stopping in order to prevent causing permanent damage such as scarring in that area.  It would be best to wait until the medication has changed or no longer necessary than to tattoo the person at that time.

Are you on antibiotics?  Tattoos can heal lightly if done during an antibiotic treatment - a good reason to delay the tattoo appointment for a week or two.

HIV, AIDS, Cancer, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis, carry potential complications you may face while healing from the tattoo.  Tattoo artists are trained to consider each client potentially infected with any of these diseases, which is called Universal Precautions.

They want to know if you have any of these conditions because if you do, the tattoo process may compromise your immune system and cause a worsening of your condition.  It could result not only in a poorly healed tattoo, but potentially a downward turn in your health overall as your body attempts to heal what is in effect a large flesh wound.

Acknowledging your allergies is important, especially in regards to latex allergies and metal allergies.  Tattoo artists often use latex gloves, so if you know you are allergic to latex you MUST let them know in advance of the tattoo process so that you are not exposed to it.  They will have alternative gloves such as nitrile gloves which will not cause a reaction.

Metal allergies can alert your tattoo artist to a potential allergy to certain inks.  For example a sulphur allergy often indicates an allergy to red pigments, and these can be avoided in your tattoo.

Now that you know several of the allergies, conditions and diseases that might make getting or healing your tattoo more difficult, you can be prepared when going to the tattoo studio.  Remember that your health and safety is your tattoo artist's number one concern, and it should be yours too!