Doctors Think a Woman ’s Tattoo May Have Been Causing Her Severe Leg Pain

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, say it is a reminder to physicians that they should be mindful of their patients’ tattoos 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 s...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime onetime tattoos Source Type: news