It is very painful to remove the tattoo which you have applied with great desire and expectation. However there are some compelling circumstances that forces one to remove a tattoo. Some of them include severe skin allergy and infections. There are some people who would not like the embedded design anymore. They opt for removal of tattoo and applying fresh ones at the same/different sites. Tattoo is fixed roughly 1 mm below the skin surface and during the process of removal your artist would destroy the applied pigment from the dermis layer. This can cause scarring of skin and slight damage to the underlying tissue.
There are several methods in which tattoos can be removed.
Laser Therapy (Laser Tattoo Removal) :
Though it is expensive, laser treatment is considered to be the ideal method for tattoo removal. It leaves almost no scar on the tissue and hence has become the most preferred option for tattoo removal. In laser therapy, the technician would send short pulses of light radiation which would penetrate the skin layer to break up the applied dye from the skin. The surrounding tissue would remain untouched during the process. After the ink has been broken into tiny particles, the immune system of the body would get triggered to expel those particles totally from the body.
Laser method uses Q-switched laser beam of light directly on the pigment. Several kinds of light waves like Alexandrite, ruby, and yag are used for removing colored dye/pigment from the skin layer. Each one of them uses specific colored light to break down the ink into small particles that are to be expelled from the skin. But don’t expect laser method to be complete in one session. You may have to repeat several sessions with fixed intervals of time for getting the expected result. It would take anywhere from 4-18 months for complete removal of the tattoo image from the skin. Again the results may vary from one person to the other.
Laser Tattoo Removal Procedure :
You would be given local anesthesia so that you may not feel any pain or discomfort during the removal process. The site can get swollen and become reddish looking like sunburn for few days. But this is quite normal in laser procedure. You should avoid exposure of the site to direct sunlight.