Post-Mastectomy Nipple Tattoos - Susan's Story Okay, a lot of people have asked me if the tattoo hurts and it does hurt. Often when you have a mastectomy, you lose feeling in your breast because they cut into that area, but sometimes you get some of the feeling back. So I did not know if it would hurt or not, but I did have more feeling than I thought I would. So the initial part, it really did hurt, but then she kind of put some local gel on it, which helped numb it up and that helped a lot. So it was not too bad. I mean it hurt, but you know, it was short. It was quick.