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There is no doubt that getting a tattoo can hurt, but one woman was left stunned by the pain she felt in her ankle while getting new ink—only for a scan to reveal the shocking truth.
Skylar Jordan Linn got both of her ankles tattooed on July 16, 2023, with a paper airplane on the left, and a butterfly on her right ankle. It was noticeable that the tattoo on the right ankle hurt much more than the left, but Linn, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, tried not to think too much about that.
That was, until the pain returned in 2026.
Linn, 24, told Newsweek: “My boyfriend and I went ice skating for our anniversary at the end of January. I hadn’t gone ice skating in over 10 years, so my legs were sore in the following days. However, after the initial soreness wore off, I realized that one specific spot of my ankle hurt even worse.”
Back in 2016, Linn had an MRI after experiencing pain in her leg. The findings showed a 1.4-centimeter lesion in her right fibula, believed to be a non-ossifying fibroma. This is a common, benign tumor that can develop in the bones of children, and they usually resolve naturally by adulthood.
When she felt the pain at the start of this year, Linn could not resist going back through the paperwork from her previous scans. She knew the pain was in the “exact spot” where the tumor was previously found, so Linn mentioned it to her doctor.
“My doctor originally believed it was just tendinitis. Thankfully, I felt that it was my bone and convinced her to order an X-ray and another MRI to look for a fracture and see if the lesion was still there,” Linn said.
“On my X-ray, they found that the lesion was now 3 cm long. After realizing that the lesion had pretty much doubled in size over the past 10 years and that I was experiencing so much pain, I asked for the MRI to find a fracture. It had grown so much that it was causing my bone to expand, and it looked like my bone could snap at any moment.”
Seeing that the tumor had grown so much was certainly concerning for Linn, although she felt some relief in knowing that there was a genuine reason for the pain.
Linn had surgery in May to remove the tumor. They did a curettage with allograft bone grafting to scrape the entire tumor off the bone and fill the gap with donor tissue. A biopsy was also taken of the tumor during the procedure, showing that it does not fit into a specific diagnostic category yet.
Although Linn is still experiencing pain, she believes it is a normal part of recovery and hopes it will subside with time.
Linn could not resist sharing this unexpected experience on social media (@skyjlinn on TikTok) in a post that has gone viral with over 300,200 views and 8,700 likes at the time of writing.
“The tattoo was completely unrelated to the tumor, it just happened to be in the exact same spot,” Linn told Newsweek. “However, I started wondering if the tattoo is what caused the tumor to get worse. My personal belief is that it was a non-ossifying fibroma that hemorrhaged and developed cyst-like characteristics. I am curious now if getting the tattoo right on top of it was what caused that hemorrhage.”
Is there a health issue that’s worrying you? Let us know via [email protected]. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Emma Lee-Sang
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