Dumb founded...Thoughts?

Hey, guys, this may be a hard question to answer but I'm really curious if any of you have seen this before and your opinions. My sister has a tattoo that's about 12 years old. It was two brown teddy bears holding a red heart. The male bear was done in a darker brown and the female slightly lighter brown. The tattoo is on her chest. My sister has always seemed to have great skin for tattooing, and they aged exceptionally well, with no fading and the lines stayed super crisp. A few years ago though, I did notice that all her tattoos had begun to look faded. Well, she's 37 now, lost a lot of weight and is on several medications - including thyroid meds, long-term antibiotics and several head meds. Anyway, I had a look at her tattoo the other day and both bears are completely green. Not a brownish green. They look like they were done in very bright greens that had now faded. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now, given the info I provided, I can see where all of that might play a role. But I was wondering if any of you have seen this exact type of thing before and if you may have pinpointed exactly what caused it. Maybe I should also note that I have no clue what brand of ink that was used but that we both have other aged tattoos from the same shop/artist and the colors are fine...with the exception of the browns in the bears. Hope you can help, thanks.

Hey- It sounds to me like her ink is reacting to her meds-it is a common occurance---for example someone who is on heart meds and gets their hair chemically altered (say a perm) the hair will color the water purple...and seeing that skin is made up of the same proteins as hair to would make sense that molecules from the chemicals she takes internally would do the same. What chemical or combination of chemicals would make this type of reaction happen...now that is a good q- you would actually need to know what chemicals were in the ink and the chemicals in the meds to really nail down which one it could be. The loss of weight would not really be a factor -it definately is interesting though. The age issue could explain some of the fading or fuzziness as the elastins in the skin are affected by age anyways (that with fat loss and texture changes) but when it comes to the color---I would definately say the meds, and I may add that I would less suspect the head medicines and more so the other ones.

I suspect something in her meds caused her to absorb the Iron pigments (Red) from her ink somehow, leaving the green tint. Im no chemist but it makes sense to me.

Thank you both. Jeanne, Thanks, I know what you mean. My mom is a hair stylist and when doing a chemical that's always the first things they ask, about meds. I agree that it's probably not the head meds, I just wanted to give as much of her history as possible in case it would be of help. John, What you say makes sense except there is also red in the tattoo that stayed perfectly red. Unless it was a different red pigment mixed in to make the brown. *shrugs* Thanks, I hope to hear from others as well.

Colors fall out at different rates sometimes, I had a tattoo where all the (forgot the exact color but it was the oranges or reds) suddenly disappeared... Got it reworked by a bad ass artist and viola, its in there now to stay!