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 A surprising number of people who get tattooed say they develop severe itching and swelling lasting for months or even years, a new survey suggests. 
 
 Shutterstock tattooer showing process of making a tattoo. Tattoo design in the form of four-leaf clover; Shutterstock ID 215931283; PO: today.com 
 
 After interviewing 300 randomly selected people with tattoos in New York City’s Central Park, researchers found that 4 percent had experienced a short duration rash right after getting “inked,” while an additional 6 percent reported skin problems that lasted longer than four months, according to the study published Wednesday in Contact Dermatitis. 
 
 “I’ve taken care of patients who have had problems with their tattoos and was curious about how common this was,” said the study coauthor Dr. Marie Leger a dermatologist and assistant professor at the New York University. “I was surprised at the results. 
 
 The reactions can be quite striking, Leger said. “The colored portion can sometimes raise up as much as a centimeter above the skin and can affect the texture of the skin and the way the tattoo looks,” she explained. 
 
 Leger suspects that allergies could be at the root of many of the rashes. Nearly two-thirds of the people with long-lasting rashes reported having allergies, as compared to just one-third in the group that had no reactions to the inking. 
 
 For the new study, Leger and colleagues staked out two spots in Central Park, asking passersby if they would be interested in being in the study. People who were over 18, had tattoos done in the U.S., and could respond in English were eligible to participate. 
 
 The 149 men and 151 women selected were asked for details about their tattoos and any skin conditions that appeared after the inking that didn’t appear to be part of the normal healing process. People with reactions to their tattoos reported skin irritations that were “itchy, scaly, raised, and/or filled with edema.” 
 
 Red ink appeared to be linked with rashes more often than other colors. 
 
 That wasn’t a surprise to Mike Martin, president of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists. 
 
 “I don't have any statistics or percentages of people who break out with a rash and can speak from my personal experience only,” Martin said. “The prevalence of a rash appearing is uncommon although not unheard of throughout the tattoo industry. Some folks’ bodies do not like red pigments.” 
 
 The rashes usually appear during the healing stage, though they can appear after the tattoo looks like it’s healed, Martin said. 
 
 “I have heard of the rash appearing 12 months after the tattoo has been healed,” he added. “It is usually in the site where red pigments were tattooed into the skin. The rash persists until all of the red ink has been pushed from the skin. Occasionally, I have seen this happen to some blues, purples and greens that were tattooed on someone overseas.” 
 
 That could be a lot of skin rashes. A 2012 Harris Interactive Poll found that at least one in five of all adults in the U.S. has at least one tattoo. 
 
 Still, Martin said he thought that 10 percent was high, based on his 35 years of experience. 
 
 Leger and her colleagues found that the rashes sometimes appeared months or even years after the initial inking. Some people said that their rashes seemed to become worse when exposed to the sun. 
 
 Though Dr. Amy Crawford-Faucher isn’t surprised to hear that one in 10 people with tattoos will develop some kind of skin problem, she suspects that many people aren’t aware. 
 
 “It’s an unreported, unseen problem,” said Crawford-Faucher, a clinical assistant professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who is unaffiliated with the new study. “It’s information that people should know about.” 
 
 She’s not sure why people don’t come to the doctor more when they’ve got problems with their tattoos. But she’s observed, “there’s a lot of stoicism around tattoos. Even people who don’t put up with a lot of discomfort when it comes to other things put up with a lot of side effects from tattoos because they think that’s normal.” 
 
 People unfortunately often don’t seek medical attention when they have tattoo-related skin problems, Leger said. Prescription steroid treatments can help with the rashes. 
 
 Tattoo removal: One of life's few do-overs 
 
 Leger said she can’t say whether the results would generalize to anywhere in the nation. But studies in Europe found similar results, she said. 
 
 If you're planning on a tattoo, Leger advises: 
 
 Stay out of the sun 
 
 Consider avoiding red ink 
 
 Take really good care of the tattoo (keep it clean and follow instructions on care) 
 
 Pick a tattoo parlor with a good reputation. 
 
 Linda Carroll is a regular contributor to NBCNews.com and TODAY.com. She is co-author of "The Concussion Crisis: Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic” and the recently published “Duel for the Crown: Affirmed, Alydar, and Racing’s Greatest Rivalry” ||||| Story highlights About 10% of people in a small survey say they had adverse reactions like itching and pain after getting a tattoo 
 
 For 6% of the people, problems such as swelling lasted for at least four months 
 
 Chronic tattoo complications are linked to dyes, especially red dye, in the tattoo ink 
 
 (CNN) An estimated 25% of people in the United States have a permanent tattoo, making it one of the most popular forms of body art. But those colorful etchings of birds and symbols can sometimes cause ugly and painful skin problems. A new study suggests that 10% of people who get inked experience infections, itching and other adverse reactions, sometimes lasting more than four months. 
 
 Researchers at New York University asked people in Central Park whether they had a tattoo, and if so, whether they had any reactions after getting tattooed that they thought were out of the ordinary, such as redness and scarring. 
 
 Out of the 300 people the researchers surveyed, 31 (10.3%) said they developed abnormal reactions. In 4% of these cases, the reactions, including pain, itching and infection, went away within four months. Some required antibiotics. The other 6% had itching, scaly skin and swelling around the tattoo site that lasted for more than four months. 
 
 "I was totally surprised by these numbers," said Dr. Marie C. Leger, assistant professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Center and lead author of the study , which was published Thursday in the journal Contact Dermatitis. "I see patients with complaints about their tattoos, but I didn't have any idea how common it was," Leger added. 
 
 However, as Leger pointed out, it is not clear if the numbers in her study are representative of this large subset of the population. Researchers need to study bigger groups of people, and follow up with physical exams and biopsies to confirm and diagnose their conditions, she said. 
 
 Read More ||||| In what they believe to be the first survey of its kind in the United States, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that as many as 6 percent of adult New Yorkers who get "inked" -- in other words, those who get a tattoo -- have experienced some form of tattoo-related rash, severe itching or swelling that lasted longer than four months and, in some cases, for many years. 
 
 "We were rather alarmed at the high rate of reported chronic complications tied to getting a tattoo," says senior study investigator and NYU Langone dermatologist Marie Leger, MD, PhD, whose team's latest findings appear in the journal Contact Dermatitis online May 27. 
 
 "Given the growing popularity of tattoos," says Leger, an assistant professor in NYU Langone's Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology, "physicians, public health officials, and consumers need to be aware of the risks involved." 
 
 Leger says some adverse skin reactions are treatable with anti-inflammatory steroid drugs, but others may require laser surgery. For stronger reactions, surgery is sometimes necessary to remove tattooed areas of the skin or built-up scar tissue and granular skin lesions, which can rise several millimeters on the skin and cause considerable itching and emotional distress. 
 
 According to Leger, an estimated one in five adult Americans now has at least one tattoo. 
 
 Leger says the study findings, derived from survey interviews with some 300 adults in New York's Central Park in June 2013, mirror those in other European countries, which have only recently begun to monitor medical complications associated with tattoos. 
 
 Leger cites the lack of regulatory oversight as an underlying weakness in measuring the true scope of the complications tied to tattooing, noting that the chemical composition of colored inks used in the process is poorly understood and not standardized among dye manufacturers. "It is not yet known if the reactions being observed are due to chemicals in the ink itself or to other chemicals, such as preservatives or brighteners, added to them, or to the chemicals' breakdown over time," says Leger. "The lack of a national database or reporting requirements also hinders reliable monitoring." 
 
 "The skin is a highly immune-sensitive organ, and the long-term consequences of repeatedly testing the body's immune system with injected dyes and colored inks are poorly understood," says Leger. "Some of the reactions appear to be an immune response, yet we do not know who is most likely to have an immune reaction to a tattoo." 
 
 Among the study's other key findings was that similar types of short-term complications, including delayed healing, pain, swelling, and infection within weeks of getting tattooed, occur in as many as 10 percent of people. In addition, the data showed that only a third of those who did experience a reaction sought medical advice or help. Instead, Leger notes, other studies have shown that many go back to the tattoo parlor for advice. 
 
 Most long-lasting complications occurred in skin regions injected with the two most common tattoo ink colors, red and black. Almost half (44 percent) of chronic reactions were to red ink, even though only slightly more than a third (36 percent) had tattoos with red ink. One-third of chronic cases involved black ink, while over 90 percent of tattoos encompass black coloring. 
 
 Survey respondents ranged in age from 18 to 69, with a majority having no more than five tattoos. One had 53, and the arm was the most popular tattoo site (at 67 percent). 
 
 Leger has plans for a larger survey to determine what colored inks and possible dye components are most closely tied to adverse reactions. She says her investigation might also reveal other factors that might put people at greater risk of suffering chronic complications. 
 
 ### 
 
 Funding support for the study was provided by NYU Langone. Other researchers involved in this study were two NYU Langone medical students who helped design and administer the survey, Bobbi Georgia Brady, MD, and Heidi Gold, MD; and Elizabeth Leger, PhD, at the University of Nevada in Reno, who performed the statistical analyses. 
 
 For more information, go to: 
 
 http://nyulangone. org/ doctors/ 1144483843/ marie-c-leger 
 
 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1600-0536 
 
 Media Contact: 
 
 David March 
 
 212-404-3528 
 
 david.march@nyumc.org
– A new survey of those who have gotten tattoos suggests that more people than realized suffer a nasty skin reaction as a result. NYU researchers determined that 10% of people suffer short-term complications such as a rash, infection, or swelling that last for days or weeks. But the scarier stat is that 6% of the newly inked have complications that last at least four months, and sometimes for years, the researchers say in a post at Eureka Alert. "We were rather alarmed at the high rate of reported chronic complications tied to getting a tattoo," says lead investigator Marie Leger. In the study published in Contact Dermatitis, the research team suggests it's time to set up a national database and a protocol for reporting problems. Those steps could help determine what's causing the reactions, such as particular chemicals in the ink, say the researchers. One nugget from the 300-person study is that red ink was used in 44% of the tattoos that caused chronic problems, the highest percentage of any color. That didn't surprise the president of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, who, while calling rashes "uncommon although not unheard of," tells Today.com that "some folks' bodies do not like red pigments." No federal regulations cover tattoo ink, notes CNN, and it quotes a dermatology professor not involved with the study who praises it for calling attention to the subject. He predicts that the composition of dyes used in tattoos might come under federal scrutiny. (A more bizarre side effect of tattoos: They'll mess up your Apple Watch.)