I’ve never taken anything, from what I’ve read some painkillers are bad for tattooing because they make you bleed more and the topical ones require an awful lot of timing, and if its a long session when the wear off you body gets a very nasty shock.
tat by tat
shoulder blade – easy peasy, very manageable pain
wrist – not fun at all, if it were larger…it wouldn’t have been pretty
outer thighs – most of it was fine, but on the left it was pure agony is it got closer to the knee and towards the back of the leg, oddly enough that spot didn’t bother me on the right side, on the right it got bad when he went over the panty line, which was easy on the other side. So your nerves don’t necessarily mirror.