Laser Tattoo Removal

It used to be that if one day after too many margaritas, you woke up with a brand new tattoo, even say, a real beauty, a Mexican cutie, you were pretty much stuck with it.

Of course, most of you have only yourselves to blame for that patch of ink decorating your skin. And it's estimated that about 20% of you now regret that bit of permanent self-expression.

Thanks to lasers, you can rub out that old boyfriend's name from your behind or that giant cobra snaking up your arm without resorting to surgery or other techniques that are not as effective and often left the patient scarred.

How Laser Tattoo Removal Works

A focused beam of light from the laser passes through the top layer of skin and shatters the ink pigment that resides in the dermis into small particles. The body's immune system sees these particles as foreign objects and works to flush the ink fragments away. After 6 to 8 weeks, the body has removed all it can remove and the remaining particles of pigment settle back down. Then it's time to break them up again with another laser session. 

The laser is set to specific wavelengths to target different tattoo colors. The easiest colors to remove are black and blue. Green, yellow and fluorescent hues are the hardest. Some lighter ink shades, such as pink or flesh tone, can actually darken with treatment, turning black or gray. But no worries - if this happens, on the next session the wavelength specific to black will be used to remove the darker new ink color.

Will Laser Treatment Remove All of the Tattoo?

Most doctors will not guarantee complete 100% removal. Unlike a permanent hair wave or even permanent hair removal, a permanent tattoo lives up to its name.

Many factors weigh in to the ultimate success of your tattoo removal: how new it is, its size, its location, the type of pigment used (there are about 300 that are used in the tattoo industry), the colors used, the amount of ink in the tattoo, how deeply the ink was injected and how well you heal.

However, with the ever-improving technology, in most cases you can expect a fantastic result.

The laser treatment is painful, some liken it to being snapped with rubberbands or being splattered with small drops of hot grease.

Before Laser Tattoo Removal Treatment

Avoid aspirin and non-steroid anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen in the days before your session because these can cause you to bruise more afterward.

If you want, you can apply a topical anesthetic, available by prescription, a couple of hours before the procedure. Or you can have local anesthetic injected into the area just before the tattoo removal session begins.

However, if you can tough it out, there's some evidence that an injection of anesthesia may slightly reduce the effectiveness of the laser and therefore increase the treatments required by one or two sessions.

How long the session lasts depends on the size of the tattoo, but generally it's very fast, just a few minutes. The number of sessions required to remove a tattoo will depend on the factors noted above (Will Laser Treatment Remove All of the Tattoo?).

After Laser Tattoo Removal Treatment

An antibacterial ointment will be applied to the area after the laser treatment and covered with a dressing. You will have to use the ointment at home as well.

For a few days afterward the skin will probably feel like it does when you get a sunburn. A sort of crust will form over the area and that may take a couple of weeks to come off. Whatever you do, you want to treat the area gingerly, no picking or scrubbing, so the skin can heal as well as is possible. As your body begins to get rid of the broken down ink fragments, you'll notice the tattoo fading over the coming weeks.

Generally, the risks with this type of tattoo removal - as opposed to excision tattoo removal or cryosurgical tattoo removal, for example - are few. But it is possible for the skin to become discolored, either turning dark (hyperpigmentation) or getting white spots (hypopigmentation). These may go away over time, but they can be permanent issues. As noted above, it's also possible that not all of the tattoo ink can be removed completely. There is also a small chance of infection and scarring.

Laser Tattoo Removal Cost

The smallest tattoo removal may still cost several hundred dollars, and the price can quickly escalate into the thousands, based on size and location, etc. Look for a dermatologic surgeon to treat you. If you don't know anyone who's had a tattoo removed to give you a referral, the American Society of Dermatologic Surgeons or the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery will help. Another great place to find a recommendation is a tattoo removal forum.

Free Tattoo Removal

Before you get excited you probably don't qualify. Some doctors offer free tattoo removal to former gang members wanting to start life anew without those gang-banger dead giveaways marking their bodies. If this is you, search for gang tattoo removal or tattoo removal program.

In this short clip, you see the results of a session using a "state-of-the-art Q-switched laser," touted to be the fastest for tattoo removal on the market.