xgodiswarx:

Nostril piercings helping him to breathe after 15 years of not breathing properly through his nose

At 60 years of age, this professional sculptor and artisan has already lived a colourful life. After a severe motorcycle accident, he required reconstructive surgery to his face; the following years of failed nasal repair surgeries and a broken nose from his rowdy political activism left this man with a large amount of scar tissue within his nose - his septum had all but ‘collapsed’. This prominent scar tissue blocked a significant amount of his lower nasal passage and left him unable to breathe through his nose. He has spent the past 15 years struggling with breathing, sleep apnea, heavy exercise or strenuous activities, and even eating.
After consulting many doctors and being told that there was simply “nothing [they] could do”, he came to us with the idea of bypassing the collapsed passage by creating a hole either side of his nose which would be large enough for him to breathe through. While large-gauge nostril piercings are nothing new to body modification enthusiasts, the idea that this piercing could be functional and so practical in this particular case was a very interesting prospect.

Yet again, body mod as a form of healing.

Check it out: [breast cancer], [hearing impairment], and [arthritis] can all be fought with body modification, whether it’s ancient medicine or modern science calling the shots!

Can you believe people still think this is self mutilation?

(via xgodiswarx-deactivated20130507)

HELLO HANDSOME.

by Matt Geiogamah

We have evidence in the roll tattoos played in treating arthritis in ancient civilizations.

But did you also know small dot tattoos are used during laser treatments against breast cancer?

When you’re first using radiation to fight cancer, the radiation oncology facilities will initially mark the area for treatment with a pen. the initial marking pen for the initial setup. However, when the field has been defined, tattoos will be placed in the corners of the field to make sure that the field is as accurate as possible each day. 

Patients can opt out, but the tattoos are preferred by many specialists. Here’s why, according to one MD:

• It’s always nice to have a permanent map by virtue of using tattoos during the process
• If you need to treat the other side after remission, you know where the previous radiation field was in case you need to treat the other side. There is no question as to where the prior field went.
• Tattoos are really, really tiny, and magic marker marks tend to be thick and imprecise.

If you’re finished treatment and you have a tattoo that shows and gets in the way of your wearing a low-cut dress or your favorite bathing suit, then it’s okay to go to a dermatologist or a plastic surgeon to have the tattoo at the top center of the chest paled or removed with a laser. The remaining “shadow” of the previous tattoo will be enough to use in the future.

[source]

The Sun, Your Skin, And Your Tattoos

Pretty much any good tattoo artist will tell you to keep the sun off your ink. Most will explain that this is because the sun damages your skin; some will say that the sun breaks down pigment.

But what’s really happening here?

[NPR reports] and I try to break it down.

—————————————————————————

Let’s start with the basics: how does all that tattoo ink stay in? (Or, really, how does skin work?)

Skin cells have to stick together to keep your insides in and bend with your body as you move. Skin has to be permeable enough for you to sweat but impenetrable to noxious chemicals, bacteria and viruses. The skin’s top layer — the stratum corneum — is just 15 microns thick (about half that of wax paper) and is your first line of protection against the outside world.

Keeps the bad stuff out, the good stuff in. Skin is awesome. If you take a look at the diagram below, you can see how the ink get nestled right under the skin (aka the epidermis) and from the description above, why it stays there.

Now here’s the news. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, some biomechanics scientists began playing around with UV rays and some skin cells. Here’s what they found:

“UV radiation really is a double whammy,” says Dauskardt. “On one hand you’re making skin weaker and easier to break, and on the other hand you’re actually increasing the stresses in the skin so there’s more stress available to cause it to break.”

Picture a trampoline. If it stretches too far, it snaps. Now picture a really old trampoline that is not only cracking, but it again stretched too far. That’s your skin, and UV is both the weather that aged the trampoline, and the elephant that sat on it.

Now what happens if that trampoline “skin” is the only thing standing between your tattoo and the outside world? Those cracks get pretty scary pretty fast.

(I can’t believe I actually found a gif of this. Fucking Tumblr.)

At the microscopic level, UV radiation changes the structures of integral proteins, namely keratin, and fat molecules called lipids that serve as the glue that holds skin cells together. These lipids become less cohesive. So, even in deeper skin layers, the cells just don’t stick together as well.

This research suggests that it’s not actually the sun breaking down the tattoo ink: but rather, the UV rays of the sun breaking down the skin which stops being able to protect the tattoos. Science!

So how do we stop it?, asked everyone.

Can goops and lotions help? Maybe. Most moisturizing products would help prevent the skin from drying out, Dauskardt says, but “depending on what moisturizing product you use, it potentially could even be damaging because it could aid in the absorption of UV light rather than blocking it.”

Your best bet is sunscreen. Dauskardt’s group has found in preliminary tests that most sunscreens block the physical damage. “What we’re trying to figure out now is whether some sunscreens and some molecules or nanoparticles that are typically used in sunscreens are more effective than others,” he says.

Do you need me to repeat that for you? SUNSCREEN. PUT SUNSCREEN ON. And as always, the best sun block is to block the sun: whether that’s chillin’ in the shade or grabbing some protective clothing.

Because really. If there’s anyone who can make protective clothing look cool, it’s tattooed guys in collared shirts. It’s a win win.

Ötzi: Iceman’s Tattoos Were Born In Fire

For those familiar [Otzi the Iceman], many are also aware that the oldest mummy found to date has tattoos. And lots of ‘em. Around his ankles, his wrist, his back… lots of small markings around his body that, just recently, were investigated by a team of anthropologists and scientist.

Here are the facts about Otzi’s tattoos:

• The pigment found in Otzi’s dermis is soot. Otzi’s tattoos were born from the remains of a fire.
• On a microscopic level, the soot has traces of iron, phosphorus, and calcium—leading anthropologists to believe the tattoos happened long before Otzi entered the mountains in which he died in.
• Almandine and quartz crystals were also found. If they were intentionally added, it may have given the tattoos a slight glittering effect in bright light. The other explanation is that they were found in the stones in which the soot was extracted.
• Most of the tattoos are made from parallel lines, ranging in 2 to 7 repetitions in one area.
• The fact that most of the tattoos were hidden by clothing indicate that they were not for display. (Other theories suggest that they were to indicate social status.)
• The main theories of Otzi’s tattoos are now that they were pragmatic—specifically, as a cure the arthritis there is proof that he had. Acupuncture treatments for arthritis are recorded in ancient China and even popular today. This theory not only revolutionizes what we understand about art history and medicine, but the historic intersection of art and science.

Body Modification as Healing

Body modifications as a form of healing are [ancient]. But today, combined with science, that link gets a whole lot more real.

[Designaffairs Studio of Germany] have designed a conceptual hearing aid that forms a flesh tunnel through the wearer’s earlobe. Here’s what they have to say about it:

Rising self-confidence is taking prostheses to another level. People don’t try to hide their handicap anymore.Show what you‘ve got, don’t make a fuzz about your problem. Wear your hearing aid like a piece of jewelry, a stylish accessory. Be individual, be cool, be yourself.

Hearing aid is made for customers with a medium level of hearing disability. In case of a severe hearing damage one could order the PLUG which contents a more powerful system.

The idea, however, will remain only such until DesignAffair can find funding for the project.

A “blow out” is when tattoo ink spreads to other areas of our body via the capillaries. The main reason for this is because the artist inserted the tattoo ink passed the dermis into the fatty subdermis which disperses the ink. The second reason is because the part of your body you have the tattoo on is in constant contact with a shoe or some foreign object and it breaks up the ink over time, giving it a blurring effect.

SUCH  a cool diagram of the healing process!

1. The black dots are ink. When you heal, the tattoo is right on top of your skin—it shows through the darkest.
2. As you heal, your skin regenerates the top injured layers of skin, just it would do for any cut. Some of the color will leave the epidermis, some will be absorbed into the lower layers of epidermis.
3. Once the healing is complete, your top layers of dermis are back to normal, and all the pigment is below sandwiched in by your skin.

This explains why your tattoos look freshest the first few weeks. They’re not done healing! Imagine your skin is saran wrap. Now imagine putting a tan, brown, or any color saran wrap over a bright fruit salad. All of the fruit will look less vibrant and be tinted the color of the saran wrap. That’s why darker skin tones show less contrast, and white ink only really stays on the lightest colored skins.

counterfeitgod:

Suddenly, getting tattoos looks gross.

You spelled “bad ass” wrong.

(via warofthering)

Here’s a lil’ science for ya’

(Source: critink)

1 out of 5