Hey, folks, today we’ve got a super cool blog for you. We’ve been checking out your questions and concerns about general anesthesia for the tattooing process, so we sat down with Dwayne and Rudy, the Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) in charge at Sedation Lounge for Body Art. They kindly took some time out of their day to help us clear up the most important questions you sent our way. Join us!

What’s the main difference between general anesthesia and topical anesthesia?

 

Dwayne: “General anesthesia is a state in which the client’s whole body becomes anesthetized, depending on what medications we use. They will not respond to any painful stimuli. That would include and not be limited to any kind of stimulation like tattoos”.

The difference between general anesthesia and topical is vast, in the sense that topical anesthesia only anesthetizes the specific area that you put the local anesthesia on. You can find lotions or gels that are considered a local anesthesia.

If you were to put numbing cream on someone’s arm, leg, chest, or back, it would only anesthetize or prevent any painful stimulation in those areas for a short period of time, versus what we do. We put the patient in a state where their whole body doesn’t feel any pain for controlled periods of times. That’s the big difference between local anesthesia, or numbing cream, and general anesthesia”.

He explained to us that, there are different levels of anesthesia. Local anesthesia being the lowest level of anesthesia and then you get into things where you would do conscious sedation or light sedation, moderate sedation, deep sedation, and then you have general anesthesia.

Dwayne: “Anything you want to add Rudy?”

 

Rudy: “I think that’s great answer. Like he was saying, numbing creams will only numb the area for a certain amount of time. So it’s something that you can’t really on.

And from what we’ve heard from people that have used this before, it works pretty well. But, once the numbing aspect of it wears off, all of the pain that you would have been experiencing during the tattooing process comes back at one time”.

What I learned is that, with general anesthesia / deep sedation, which is what they specialize in, you wouldn’t feel a rush of pain in the process or when you wake up from anesthesia. They can give it continuously until the session is over, the numbing will not wear off by itself in the middle of the session. They have the ability of controlling the amount of time the patient is under anesthesia.

Rudy: “For an example, the chest tattoo that Gian and Randy did, the anesthesia lasted about eight hours. So we were able to provide eight hours of anesthesia for this patient versus the topical stuff that generally last 2 hours.”

 

Zaimee: “I would like to add that lately, people have been showing some side effects from using these topical creams. We noticed that some clients, by using these creams, will get the skin overworked because of the ingredients in the creams. And when you add to that the tattooing, it just creates a massive situation in the healing process.

So lately, artists have not been wanting to use those topical lotions because of those reactions. They don’t want to risk their clients healing process.  Remember, some people might not know how to care for a bad healing.  Having them to deal with that, they could definitely incur an infection or something worse. And then that is something that they’re trying to avoid.”

 

What are the actual risk of general anesthesia for tattooing?

 

Dwayne: “So this is what I like to tell people. The risks of general anesthesia are no worse than if it was raining outside. Could you get struck by lightning? The answer is yes, you could. Is it likely? Absolutely not! That’s the approximately the level of risk.

You could definitely be that one patient that has anesthesia complications. It’s possible, it’s very possible, but is it likely? It’s not likely at all! General anesthesia is relatively pretty safe.”

With that being said, the client’s medical history has an influence on how they provide anesthesia and the process. For example, what types of medications they should use, what medications they should not. Another important thing is that the patient must be honest about their medical history and lifestyle.  They also insisted on the importance of following the pre-session instructions and being honest if something changed. If they have all the information, they can advocate for you and your safety.

Dwayne: “If the client and patient is honest with us and does what we ask them to do and follows the rules that we set forth for them. Anesthesia is pretty safe.”

 

Rudy: “We need people to answer our questions honestly and thoroughly so that way we know exactly what’s going on. With all the information, we can assess what medical issues they have and then know if it’s going to be safe and appropriate to even go forth with the anesthesia. Our number one concern is the client’s safety and making sure that they walk out how they walked in. In this case they walk out with a new tattoo”

 

What kind of person is not a candidate for general anesthesia?

 

Rudy: “So for this particular question, it’s hard to answer, because it all depends on the health history. They might have an issue going on where they see a specialist for something, like a urologist or a cardiologist where we might say, look, you’re kind of borderline with what we’re willing to do, we suggest you to have a conversation with the specialist, to see if they’re ok with the hours needed under anesthesia based on the level of your condition.

If they give a thumbs up after our consideration, we can proceed with what we think would be the safest option for the client”.

Dwayne: “I would definitely like to echo Rudy’s words about safety. We’ve been providing anesthesia since 2012. So we’ve been doing it quite some time and the biggest thing is safety.

We have a very, very, very safe track record of providing safe anesthesia and that is solely based on the clients being honest with us, being able to assess their medical history in conjunction with those specialists that Rudy was referring to whether they’re a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, or neurologist, and being able to determine what is appropriate for that client and whether or not it is safe because if it’s not safe, we’re not gonna do it!”

 

 What are the benefits of getting tattooed under anesthesia?

 

Rudy: “The biggest benefit that I see is that you can get a large piece done in a very short amount of time, you only need one visit or maybe two, you don’t need as many sessions as you may need for a very large piece where you come back 5-6 times.

Our customers don’t have to take time off, several times, they reduce traveling significantly. It’s really just trying to get all that done at one time. 

From an anesthesia perspective, I think the most beneficial is the fact that when your body is relaxed and you have these medicines in your body, you’re not tense. The canvas is ideal for the artist. You are also getting some medications from us that can help with what’s called the inflammatory process from the tattooing, your skin gets less red and gets less inflamed. Some of the medicines that we give help prevent that and help reduce that. So when folks are done with getting a tattoo while they’re sleeping, they wake up and they don’t really have any pain.”

Dwayne: “They know that there’s something on them, but it doesn’t feel like it would have without anesthesia.”

Rudy and Dwayne commented that one of their clients, got a tattoo on his knee under anesthesia and the next day he was kneeling down, working on his brakes on his truck because he forgot that he had a tattoo on his knee. They were of course mortified to hear this because you have to care for your tattoo, and kneeling on the tattoo is definitely a no-no in a healing process.

 

Dwayne: “Our last client that got his full chest done, the next day he was holding his baby up against his chest like it didn’t bother him at all! I mean, we’re talking next day, a full on chest piece and he was like, it’s not a big deal.”

 

How does general anesthesia benefit the healing process of the tattoo?

 

Dwayne: “Now, anytime you inflict any scar in the body, there becomes an inflammatory process, whether it is a cut or whether it is some outline from a tattoo machine. We specifically give three medications to help reduce that inflammatory process at the very beginning and throughout, and at the end as well, to help one with the discomfort and two, to reduce that inflammatory process.

If you reduce that inflammatory process, then the healing process can start sooner, be easier on the client and make that healing faster because you have taken that inflammatory response and decreased it significantly.

That tenseness that your body goes through while you’re trying to stay still or while you try to suck it up, after a while, your body can give up and just can’t do it anymore. Then, once your body says that enough is enough, the pain just gets worse and worse because you’re fighting the tolerance of the pain. Now your body is healing different elements at the same time not only the tattoo. When you’re under anesthesia you’re not feeling it because your brain is not sensing any of the pain that’s going on.

You don’t have pain if you don’t remember having pain. If you don’t feel the pain because the pain doesn’t register in your brain, is like you never had it!  If you don’t have it and you’re relaxed, your body will heal better, your body will tolerate the procedure better”.

 

 Tell me what’s your favorite part of working at sedation lounge?

 

Dwayne: “Working with a tattoo artists, that’s the best part! I love watching what they do and seeing how they do it. It’s amazing to me. I saw Gian and Randy do an eight hour piece that blew Randy’s mind away!”

I mean, in the first hour, Randy was verbalizing that the amount of tattooing they did in that first hour, would have been at least almost one session.

That’s my favorite part is just the process of working with the tattoo artists and being able to provide the anesthesia that makes what they do even easier and basically just blow their minds.”

 

Rudy: “I would say it’s very similar to what Dwayne said because we have been in the medical world for so long that it’s kind of cool to now be working with tattoo artists.

It’s something different and fresh and new. Working with people that are just so skilled at what they do, it’s just, I don’t know, astounding! Personally, I also like what I do and I like getting people through procedures that they wouldn’t otherwise do, you know, just giving them a good experience and have them trust us in the process.”

 

Dwayne: “I think it’s gonna be great. I think this is gonna be something that’s going to change the landscape of the tattoo industry.”