What is the most painful place on the body to get a tattoo?

British science and biology professor Natalie Wilsher has a tattoo of physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) on her arm – in addition to others on her feet, wrists and ankles.

Of all the tattoos she got, the most painful were on her instep and ankles.

“Pain is the body’s way of protecting itself, and the nerves are responsible for detecting pain,” explains the professor on the BBC’s Teach me a Lesson podcast.

“It’s more painful to get a tattoo where there’s less fat and more nerves,” he details in a conversation with presenters Bella Mackie and Greg James.

In addition to the feet and ankles, the shins, armpits, shoulders and rib cage add to the list of sensitive areas, according to Wilsher, although it all depends on how sensitive you are.

“The nerves in the area that is being skewered when you get a tattoo, send the pain signal to the brain”, explains the professor.

However, someone’s reaction to the process of getting a tattoo may not necessarily be comparable to someone else’s.

“The pain tolerance threshold is completely different from person to person,” he adds.

the first tattoo

The oldest known tattoo was found on Ötzi, also called the “ice man”, a mummy discovered in a remote region of the Italian Alps in 1991, which remained frozen for more than 5,000 years.

“Otzi’s tattoos were very small, very discreet. They were dots and dashes. Anthropologists believe they were a form of acupuncture for medicinal purposes,” says Wilsher.

The teacher wonders how they healed the wounds caused by puncturing the skin – and supposes that they took months to heal.

“It’s amazing that back then, between the Stone Age and the Metal Age, they were able to get these tattoos without getting sick. It’s amazing that they had this knowledge,” he adds.

Over time, tattoos became a resource for everyone to be able to tell their own story.

“Mythology says that Captain James Cook, at the end of the 18th century, met many people with different tattoos on his voyages in the Pacific. 90% of his crew tattooed themselves as a way of marking the route of the voyage”, explains the professor.

British naval officers inherited this tradition and began tattooing their travels, using urine and gunpowder, in a preparation that used to be called nautical ink, Wilsher says.

At the end of the 19th century, the tattoo machine was created, based on the printer by Thomas Edison (1847-1931).

“It was created in 1875 and hasn’t changed much since then. It still pierces the skin 50 to 3,000 times a minute.”

The largest organ in the body

The skin is the largest organ in the body, equivalent to 50% of body weight, and its most superficial layer is renewed every 28 days. Why then does the ink not disappear when we change our skin?

Wilsher points out that the skin has three main layers: the epidermis on the surface; the dermis in the center, where blood vessels, sweat glands, follicles and nerves are located; and the deepest part which is the hypodermis, the fatty layer of the skin.

“The tattoo ink is injected into the dermis, where the nerves responsible for pain are located. The tattoos do not come off because the middle layer of the skin is protected by the epidermis,” he explains.

When the ink is injected into the dermis, she says, “your body says, ‘Jeez, I have a wound.’ And it sends macrophages, white blood cells, to that area, which try to swallow the ink and send it into the bloodstream.”

But it’s too much ink for macrophages to scavenge, so it gets stuck there.

“That’s why we can see it through the epidermis,” he adds.

Text originally published here