post-tattoo pain relief

hi all, i recently started (early June) re-covering some of my earlier (got them on in my early teens) indian ink 'tattoos'. and i've been scouring the 'net for tricks and tips on the magical panacea that is succesful, working post tat pain-relief. i intended to just cover the symbols/slogans/ etc. that i had on my arms & legs, but this tattooing thing is a bit addictive and i have become a bit of a pincushion/illustrated man (sort of). nothing major, just tribal stuff mainly, but i imagine everybody starts with the same idea, and it just snowballs (for want of a better word), consequently, i am stinging quite a lot ;-) i would be really appreciative if anybody could give me any suggestions. just to add: i did 3 on one of my legs yesterday. one of which was just to add some colour/wash. i used witch hazel for my wash and that tattoo seems to have completely missed the sting/swell phase and gone straight into the 'settled down' part of the healing process. the other two, which didn't have any wash are behaving totally normally ie. stinging. (reading that, i realise i could be on to something) all the gear i'm using is 'one-use' only in case anybody was thinking "aah, bad hygiene practises" i'm not a pro-tattooer. but the cost of cover-ups for the areas i wanted covering up was the prohibitive thing. cheers for any help you may be able to give