Perhaps a moment arose when being so young, in love or intoxicated was all that mattered, and to remember the occasion a design was placed on your body somewhere that can or should not be mentioned. Now that sobering realization or the wisdom of age has appeared, perhaps nothing is more desirable than to have that inscription taken off. Tattoo removal is possible, but unfortunately it will take a bit more effort to get off than it did going on.
In the creation of various designs thousands of pigment particles are often used and the process of removing colors that are fluorescent, green, and yellow can be more difficult than that of darker blues and blacks. Our skin is designed to heal and rid itself of foreign objects, but the larger pigment particles used with the tattooing process are unable to be eliminated in this way. Having a design eliminated is less painful now then it was previously and procedures continue to improve.
A surgical procedure that was used frequently prior to the laser was dermabrasion, and the skin is worn away in the design area. This process is done with the use of a local anesthetic, but the healing process can take several months. Some advantages with this procedure are the limited complications which include temporary bruising and some skin irritation.
Also prior to successful laser procedures were cryosurgery and complete excision with skin grafting to follow. With the use of cryosurgery, liquid nitrogen is used in the specific are to freeze the tissue which then kills it. This is considered minimally invasive and there are almost no complications reported with the procedure. When a larger area needed to be eliminated, excision was often done and then the area was grafted.
Laser techniques are specifically designed to break up pigment particles into small pieces that can be naturally dealt with by the body. Previously, continuous wave lasers were used for design elimination. Around 1990, they began using the Q-switched laser which was considered a non-invasive laser elimination method.
Q-switched lasers have continued to improve and since 2006 have been used for the most complete elimination of the largest range of pigments. The procedure can be done with only a topical anesthetic. Designs on the ankle and forearm generally take longer for elimination than others, and all will take several sessions spaced generally six weeks apart.
In order to have some idea how long treatment will take for each individual, it became necessary to develop a scale. The Kirby-Desai Scale was actually created in order to give patients some idea how many laser sessions would be necessary to complete treatment. This scale is based on six things including skin type, location, color, amount of ink, scarring or tissue change, and layering.
Unfortunately, the pain that accompanied the design going on will also accompany it coming off and your parents can then say I told you so. New ink became available in 2009 that has been made especially easy to have removed in case a person has a change of heart, so at least the future will be more manageable. If tattoo removal seems too drastic, there is what is known as the cover-up in which an artist alters the existing design into something you can live with.
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