This tattoo trend could be ink-redibly dangerous.
More people are getting tattoos under anesthesia, but medical experts warn against this risky tactic — at least one man has already died while doing so.
General anesthesia brings on a sleep-like state with the use of a combination of medicines and is typically used before and during surgery or other medical procedures. But now some who want to get inked without feeling the scratching pain of the needle are asking to be knocked out for their sessions.
Romeo Lacoste, an artist with The California Dream tattoo shop in Los Angeles, said his clients have become increasingly interested in sedation tattooing during their sessions — so he began offering sedation a year and a half ago.
“I’ve been working with a lot of celebrities and high net-worth individuals, and they’ve actually been asking me about this for quite some time,” Lacoste told USA Today.
The medical sedation stops them from feeling the pain and squirming while getting inked.
He insists that he only works with credible anesthesiologists and takes all the standard precautions, including a doctor’s evaluation and being in an operating room.
“We finally found a way to make it happen and connect the dots and work with some of the top anesthesiologists in Los Angeles. The facility that we work with is one of the best of the best, so everything that we do is always top-of-the-line and safety first.”
Lacoste explained that his clients who undergo general anesthesia typically do so to get intricate tattoos that cover a lot of surface area and take up to several days to complete. On top of that, he told USA Today that the whole process could cost between $30,000 and $35,000 — whereas a back tattoo sans anesthesia would normally be $10,000 to $15,000.
In January, one man took a six-hour trip to Miami from Michigan to undergo six tattoo applications over close to 50 hours total.
“I’ll feel the aftermath, just like any other person getting a tattoo will feel, but I will not feel it during, and that was definitely a part of the puzzle for me,” Dom Groenveld, 36, told the Miami Herald of his inking session, which took place at a South Miami ambulatory surgery center under the watchful eyes of a board-certified anesthesiologist.
Celebrities aren’t immune to the appeal, either.
Tyga reportedly was under for eight hours for a process last year, Marketplace reported, and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was sedated for 11 hours to get a leg tattoo in 2023, according to Bleacher Report.
The process, however, carries risks including infection, allergic reactions and skin issues, such as scarring, the Herald reported.
Now, some medical professionals aren’t thrilled to take note of the trend.
Dr. Tiffany Moon, an author and anesthesiologist, was angered by a viral TikTok video showing a man who seemed to be unconscious while several tattoo artists covered his back in ink.
In another TikTok clip, she claimed that the man was not properly intubated and appeared to have the wrong medical equipment attached to his body.
“It makes me so angry that people are doing this,” Moon said in the clip.
“My concern, as a board-certified anesthesiologist, is how safe is this when it’s happening?” Moon told USA Today.
And she’s not wrong to worry.
Ricardo Godoi, a Brazilian auto influencer, went into cardiac arrest and died during a procedure to ink his entire back earlier this year.
The tragic event occurred Jan. 20 at a hospital in Brazil’s Santa Caterina state, where the wheels whiz was to undergo general anesthesia before the bodywork began.
Reportedly, the tattoo artist had not even started when Godoi suffered a heart attack shortly after the sedation process had begun.
However, Moon, an alum of “The Real Housewives of Dallas,” said that undergoing general anesthesia for a tattoo appointment could be all right if done properly.
“If, for example, it were happening in an ambulatory surgery setting where there were rescue equipment available, where there was a board-certified anesthesiologist administering the anesthesia, where the patient was being adequately monitored, that’s perfectly acceptable,” she conceded.
But some tattoo fanatics don’t agree that it’s “acceptable,” even if medical experts approve the procedure. Lacoste noted that some believe “you need to earn your tattoo” by enduring the pain.
But not everyone’s a masochist.
“The whole idea of ‘I want to endure the pain to get the ink because that’s just how it is’ — I think that’s slowly becoming obsolete,” Michael Zuratti, co-founder of South Florida-based Sedation Ink, told the Miami Herald.
“You absolutely cannot have plastic surgery without anesthesia, whereas, for a tattoo, you can,” Moon told USA Today. “For this, you just don’t want to [go without]. It’s more convenient or you’d rather not because of the pain and the time savings.”
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