Post by chemicalburn on Nov 27, 2016 19:37:01 GMT
I thought I'd post about my experience with tattoo removal since it's something that a lot of people might consider. Sorry in advance for the terrible photos, they were taken with a phone camera and I'm just bad at taking photos.
This is what it looked like before:
I got it a couple of weeks after I turned 18, by an artist a friend recommended to me. It was never what I wanted and on top of that it was just badly done, after 4 years it was already so dark and messy it was difficult to tell what it was meant to be. And it was just ugly.
I went to a dermatologist to have it removed, not just some tattoo studio or beautician. I saw examples of his work before I committed to anything, like you should when picking a tattoo artist. I wanted more tattoos so I wasn't worried about getting rid of it completely, and he estimated that it'd take around 4 sessions, two months apart, to fade it to the point where it'll be easy to cover (I ended up only having two sessions). His estimate was based on a few factors-1) it was all black, which is the easiest colour to remove, 2) people tend to see the most dramatic results in the first 4 sessions and it gets harder as you go along, and 3) I was young, healthy, had good skin and hadn't had any trouble with healing tattoos in the past. Like getting a tattoo, how you look after it is important. Keep it clean, keep it out of the sun, and don't let it dry out. Since laser removal works by breaking the particles of ink into smaller pieces and your body does the legwork by removing those particles through the lymphatic system, having a strong, uncompromised immune system and being well hydrated help things move along more quickly. Risks include depigmentation of the skin (more common on people with darker skin), scarring which is usually the result of the laser being done badly, and there is a small chance of infection because the skin does break a little and it's common to develop blisters after each session.
Here's a picture taken shortly after the first session:
It's true that getting laser hurts much more than getting a tattoo. I actually thought it felt more like being stuck with a needle than getting a tattoo does. It only took a few minutes but right from the start it was kind of like when you're coming towards the end of a long tattoo session and it's getting sore and you don't know how much longer you can handle it. I would consider myself to tolerate pain pretty well and I don't know how well I would have been able to take it if it was a more sensitive area. You can feel each individual snap of the laser, and every time you hear it snap that's because particles of ink are breaking apart. It doesn't hurt to go back over areas that have already been done, though he left some small gaps on purpose so the skin wouldn't be overworked. If you look at videos of laser removal, you see this white stuff on the surface of the skin where the laser has been. That's called frosting and it's caused by the ink closest to the surface of the skin oxidising. That clears up within a few minutes, and then you can see little blood spots under the skin. Those are normal, but you don't want to have loads of them or for them to be too big. The pain mostly subsided fairly quickly but the area was still swollen, warm, and sore to touch for a few days after. My arm also smelled raw and a little singed in the shower that night.
This one was taken before I went to bed that night, 6-7 hours later, when it was still a little lumpy and swollen. Most of the shading seemed to be gone immediately, but it was even more obvious at this stage:
And another one from the morning after when the swelling and redness had mostly gone down:
I had no problems with healing. The skin did break in places but it wasn't really open in the same way a fresh tattoo is so it didn't really get scabby, but I still put a little vitamin E oil on it to stop it from drying out. It did blister a little but there weren't many and they were all pretty small, like 1-2mm each.
This next photo was taken two moths later, just before the second session. At this point the ink had gone very patchy and was much lighter. The shading was mostly gone, I had thought it was completely gone but as the redness went down the lighter bits started to show through again. The slight red/brown discolouration you see now is pigment in the ink that the laser didn't remove.
There wasn't such a noticeable difference straight away the second time, but that's because all the light shading is pretty much gone and only the darker areas were left, so there wasn't as much going on this time. It was much quicker too because the area that had to be gone over was smaller. The laser specialist was actually surprised at how dramatic the results were after only one session, and he said that at this rate I might only need one more session on the darkest part. He recommended that I give it at least 6 weeks to heal and settle down after the last session before I started covering it. These photos were taken after the second session:
After that, I showed my tattoo artist while I was getting something else done and he said he could cover it as it was and I wouldn't need any more treatments.
Today, this is all that's left:
There's some scarring from the original tattoo that's kind of visible when it catches the light, and a small dot about 2.5mm across from the laser. The cover-up hurt more than other tattoos I've gotten, because of the laser and the fact that the guy who did the first tattoo was very heavy-handed. There was a noticeable difference in the pain levels when my tattoo artist moved from an area that had been tattooed/lasered to normal skin. I still need to get that small bit at the bottom covered but the worst of it is gone and I'm not going to rush into it.
This is what it looked like before:
I got it a couple of weeks after I turned 18, by an artist a friend recommended to me. It was never what I wanted and on top of that it was just badly done, after 4 years it was already so dark and messy it was difficult to tell what it was meant to be. And it was just ugly.
I went to a dermatologist to have it removed, not just some tattoo studio or beautician. I saw examples of his work before I committed to anything, like you should when picking a tattoo artist. I wanted more tattoos so I wasn't worried about getting rid of it completely, and he estimated that it'd take around 4 sessions, two months apart, to fade it to the point where it'll be easy to cover (I ended up only having two sessions). His estimate was based on a few factors-1) it was all black, which is the easiest colour to remove, 2) people tend to see the most dramatic results in the first 4 sessions and it gets harder as you go along, and 3) I was young, healthy, had good skin and hadn't had any trouble with healing tattoos in the past. Like getting a tattoo, how you look after it is important. Keep it clean, keep it out of the sun, and don't let it dry out. Since laser removal works by breaking the particles of ink into smaller pieces and your body does the legwork by removing those particles through the lymphatic system, having a strong, uncompromised immune system and being well hydrated help things move along more quickly. Risks include depigmentation of the skin (more common on people with darker skin), scarring which is usually the result of the laser being done badly, and there is a small chance of infection because the skin does break a little and it's common to develop blisters after each session.
Here's a picture taken shortly after the first session:
It's true that getting laser hurts much more than getting a tattoo. I actually thought it felt more like being stuck with a needle than getting a tattoo does. It only took a few minutes but right from the start it was kind of like when you're coming towards the end of a long tattoo session and it's getting sore and you don't know how much longer you can handle it. I would consider myself to tolerate pain pretty well and I don't know how well I would have been able to take it if it was a more sensitive area. You can feel each individual snap of the laser, and every time you hear it snap that's because particles of ink are breaking apart. It doesn't hurt to go back over areas that have already been done, though he left some small gaps on purpose so the skin wouldn't be overworked. If you look at videos of laser removal, you see this white stuff on the surface of the skin where the laser has been. That's called frosting and it's caused by the ink closest to the surface of the skin oxidising. That clears up within a few minutes, and then you can see little blood spots under the skin. Those are normal, but you don't want to have loads of them or for them to be too big. The pain mostly subsided fairly quickly but the area was still swollen, warm, and sore to touch for a few days after. My arm also smelled raw and a little singed in the shower that night.
This one was taken before I went to bed that night, 6-7 hours later, when it was still a little lumpy and swollen. Most of the shading seemed to be gone immediately, but it was even more obvious at this stage:
And another one from the morning after when the swelling and redness had mostly gone down:
I had no problems with healing. The skin did break in places but it wasn't really open in the same way a fresh tattoo is so it didn't really get scabby, but I still put a little vitamin E oil on it to stop it from drying out. It did blister a little but there weren't many and they were all pretty small, like 1-2mm each.
This next photo was taken two moths later, just before the second session. At this point the ink had gone very patchy and was much lighter. The shading was mostly gone, I had thought it was completely gone but as the redness went down the lighter bits started to show through again. The slight red/brown discolouration you see now is pigment in the ink that the laser didn't remove.
There wasn't such a noticeable difference straight away the second time, but that's because all the light shading is pretty much gone and only the darker areas were left, so there wasn't as much going on this time. It was much quicker too because the area that had to be gone over was smaller. The laser specialist was actually surprised at how dramatic the results were after only one session, and he said that at this rate I might only need one more session on the darkest part. He recommended that I give it at least 6 weeks to heal and settle down after the last session before I started covering it. These photos were taken after the second session:
After that, I showed my tattoo artist while I was getting something else done and he said he could cover it as it was and I wouldn't need any more treatments.
Today, this is all that's left:
There's some scarring from the original tattoo that's kind of visible when it catches the light, and a small dot about 2.5mm across from the laser. The cover-up hurt more than other tattoos I've gotten, because of the laser and the fact that the guy who did the first tattoo was very heavy-handed. There was a noticeable difference in the pain levels when my tattoo artist moved from an area that had been tattooed/lasered to normal skin. I still need to get that small bit at the bottom covered but the worst of it is gone and I'm not going to rush into it.