I'm planning to get one for a few weeks on my arm, so if anyone had it, how was the experience and did it hurt during the process of getting one?
I don't know anyone who had tattoos in general so I had to ask. I want it to look really nice and have it for a week or so.
Tattoo ink can absolutely trigger your body's immune response and cause severe reactions. This can happen out of the blue as well, as your immune system could detect the "foreign invader" at any time, and trigger a multitude of responses to try and destroy the threat.
Its very common for people to get a regular sickness, and because their immune system was in an elevated state, it all of a sudden detects the tattoo and attempts to destroy it by causing severe inflammation and other immune responses.
Yep, all the black ink on my nearly-complete traditional sleeve (so.... lots) had a spontaneous granulomatous reaction this year. They were all at least a few years old.
It's currently healing thanks to a topical steroid, but I have yet to see if it stays away for any significant length of time. I can't even have them removed (not that I want to), lest the ink enters my bloodstream and lodges in some gland somewhere. Black ink reactions are super rare; my derm had never seen one in person.
My artist even uses one of the few approved-in-the-EU inks, go figure.