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Galerne · Tattoo lover Joined: 16 Jan 2009 Posts: 1

Im having 3 tattoos removed by laser and have learned a few things i wish i knew before i started.

Lets get the pain out of the way. Yes it hurts, if you ever burned yourself on a red hot metalic surface or rod, such as heating elements in your stove, you have a good idea of what laser feels like when it hits ink. Take a old fashion pencil with those small cylindric erasers on the tip. Imagine that eraser is in fact metalic and red hot. Now imagine poking your body with it repeatedly, in the same area, for 3-7 minutes. The difference is since the burning actualy happens underneath the first layers of the skin, it kind of explodes outwards. The first treatments are worse as there is more ink, the laser can be set at lower levels to begin with. Mine was too high, so you can see tiny flakes of skinny poping everywhere as the treatment goes on.

The pain depends on how much ink there is, where on your body the tattoo is, and your own tollerance for pain. I spoke to a woman who had a tattoo on her lower back removed and she said it was more painful than giving birth, in her case anyway. My tattoos were on my forearms, yes pretty stupid, and i didn't ask for numbing creams or any type of pain relief. I tollerate pain well and just by looking at my face you couldn't tell i was being hurt, oddly enough, i found that structuring phrases was very hard during the treatment. The doctor joked and we laughed, asked a few somple questions i could easily anwser, but when he asked to explain what my work consisted of this is what came out of my mouth "well.... i take care of....errrrr......cough...... i do finances..." Conclusion, while in pain my IQ drops several points.

Bottom line is, if you found getting tattoed really hurt, go for the anesthetic cream.

2nd, price. Every clinic i went to told me a tattoo could take between 8 and 14 sessions before complete removal, depending on the quality and quatity of ink used, all things very hard for them to guess, i get that part. As i said lasers have intensity settings and it is easy for them to use a very low setting to prolong the treatment period. My first 3 treatments were more painful but i could see good results after the 5 weeks of waiting. After the 4th and 5th treatment i couldn't see any improvement. So i told him before my 6th session and he decided to used a different "older" laser since there was less ink and less danger of scaring. Boy did i like that laser, even more painful than my first treatment, i bled a LOT after that one, but got incredible results. After that treatment only one tattoo was still visible. There is a very fine line between using a lower setting to avoid scaring, and using a lower setting to get 2 or 3 more treatments per patients.

Bottom line, if you know someone who had a good experience, ask where they went. If you have no choice and have to pick one yourself like me, keep them on their toes, if you think the laser wasn't set high enough on your last visit, tell him and see what he has to say about it.

As for results, it went very well for me. No scaring or discoloration and two of them are gone. I just had a 7th treatement for the more resilient one at a different clinic. I wanted to see how others worked and it was much closer to where i live now. She saw that little ink remained and must have set it much higher because i again got a lot of blood comming out of there. Hopefully this is it for me, but only time will tell.