Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Arduous Process of Tattoo Removal

You were 18. You could now legally go out and get a tattoo! So you grabbed your old high school posse and sauntered into the closest tattoo parlor with equal parts cool-guy swagger and about to pass out frightened kid. Then there's the part where you flip through the various laminated designs until your eyes fixated on that oh so trendy tribal/butterfly/playboy bunny/fire tiger/burning skull/insert mistake here tattoo.

After all the elation involved in getting your first tattoo wares off, you likely soon realized the tacky sizzle skull was a grave mistake. But it's there, all over your chest as a daily reminder of the stupidity of your youth. As the horrific reminder doesn't seem to want to go anywhere, as it is a tattoo, you may have come to the point where your personal integrity and self esteem begs for tattoo removal. If so, you are about to enter a long and somewhat discouraging process. But before you begin removal, you have a number of choices to make.

Choices in Tattoo Removal

There are many various methods used to get rid of unwanted tattoos. Some are much more invasive than others. The more invasive procedures are going to result in more of a dramatic result than other routes, but they also tend to leave more scarring as well. Your options for ridding your body of that unwanted ink include:

o Laser removal-this therapy is by far the most common one when it comes to removal. They typically involve a number of treatments which are pretty intensive. The lasers work by targeting the ink with pulses of highly concentrated light that breaks the ink down. The ink than becomes absorbed back into your body. Laser therapy can be highly effective, but it is very rough on the skin. Blisters, scabs and eventual scarring increase with each treatment. This treatment is also highly painful and expensive.

o Intense Pulsed Light Therapy-IPL is a dermal enhancer. It uses high intensity light instead of laser light in the same manner as laser treatment. IPL is less painful than laser therapy but also significantly more expensive.

o Other methods rarely used-before laser therapy became readily available, people were forced to turn to methods such as dermabrasion-essentially sanding-and excision of the tattoo itself from the skin.

o Cream removal-there are a number of at home creams which are questionable in both efficacy and safety.


Source : Ezinearticles

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