--- title: Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo Caused Her Severe Leg Pain description: The 31-year-old woman was on immune-suppressant drugs and suffered from inflammatory myopathy. canonical: https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-19T00:47:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:22.988Z article:section: Health og:title: Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo Caused Her Severe Leg Pain og:description: They said other physicians should consider tattoos to diagnose unexplained problems og:url: https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0601406d719def8c/6989333edb2987518d25ff20/gettyimages-686736069.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5600 og:image:height: 3150 og:image:alt: Tattoo artist in studio preparing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo Caused Her Severe Leg Pain twitter:description: They said other physicians should consider tattoos to diagnose unexplained problems twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0601406d719def8c/6989333edb2987518d25ff20/gettyimages-686736069.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo May Have Been Causing Her Severe Leg Pain > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=721fa93b-2b23-44ab-b48c-bbc9cec207e8&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Are Tattoos Bad For You? [Watch (HLS stream): Are Tattoos Bad For You?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zNMDv5MZ.m3u8) (1:04)  _Published 2017-04-05. The number of Americans with at least one tattoo has jumped 50% in the past four years_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jun 19, 2018 12:47 AM UTC  Cape Town, South Africa,Tattoo Parlour Cape Town, South Africa,Tattoo Parlour Westend61—Getty Images/Westend61  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jun 19, 2018 12:47 AM UTC Doctors in Scotland believe a woman’s large tattoo on her leg may have been the cause of her unexplained inflammation and severe leg pain. The authors of a report on the woman’s case, [ published in _BMJ Case Reports_](http://casereports.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bcr-2018-224968), say it is a reminder to physicians that they should be mindful of their [patients’ tattoos](http://time.com/4725634/tattoo-ink-dangerous/) if they encounter unusual and unexplained symptoms. The 31-year-old woman was suffering a condition called inflammatory myopathy, which affected her left leg and caused pain severe enough to disrupt her sleep. The woman had a double lung transplant in 2009, and was taking drugs to suppress her immune system so she would not reject the donated organ. Test after test revealed no obvious cause for her pain, and when it didn’t abate after 10 months, she had a biopsy of the thigh muscle, which finally revealed the inflammation. Doctors then speculated that a large, multi-colored tattoo she had received on the left thigh might have contributed to her condition. “Nobody had inquired about the tattoo. But given she had unusual symptoms that were otherwise unexplainable and the onset of this pathology was at the same time and location as the tattoo, that sent the bells ringing for us thinking that there was a possible link,” says Dr. William Wilson, a trauma and orthopedic surgeon at University of Glasgow, who is the lead author of the case study. Wilson says he can’t prove that the tattoo actually caused the woman’s inflammation, but says that the possibility should be considered. He says her previous health history, and the fact that she also developed diabetes related to cystic fibrosis is unlikely to have contributed to the muscle inflammation. More doctors, he says, should be inquiring about tattoos especially among people who might have weakened immune systems and in cases where symptoms don’t seem to have an obvious cause. “The learning point for the public is that if you are in one of the high risk groups such as the immune suppressed, consult your doctor before getting something like a tattoo or piercing where there is a skin breach involved, because you are at higher risk of infection and complications,” Wilson says. Wilson and his team treated the woman with steroids, and after about a year of physical therapy, her symptoms started to subside but it took three years for the pain to disappear and the strength to return to her leg. “For some physicians, discussing tattoos might seem awkward, but doctors should be thinking about tattoos and risks when people present with unusual symptoms that are not obviously explainable,” says Wilson. “Doctors need to consider \[tattoos\] might be a risk factor.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/"},"headline":"Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo May Have Been Causing Her Severe Leg Pain","datePublished":"2018-06-19T00:47:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:22.988Z","description":"She was taking drugs to suppress her immune system","url":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/","keywords":["tattoos","onetime","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0601406d719def8c/6989333edb2987518d25ff20/gettyimages-686736069.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0601406d719def8c/6989333edb2987518d25ff20/gettyimages-686736069.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tattoo artist in studio preparing","caption":"Tattoo artist in studio preparing","creditText":"Westend61—Getty Images/Westend61","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/tattoos/","name":"tattoos"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/","name":"Doctors Think a Woman's Tattoo May Have Been Causing Her Severe Leg Pain"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Are Tattoos Bad For You?","description":"The number of Americans with at least one tattoo has jumped 50% in the past four years","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zNMDv5MZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-04-05T17:26:09.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zNMDv5MZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/","duration":"PT1M4S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5314886/tattoo-leg-pain-immune-suppression/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```