How does the length of time you have had a tattoo affect your laser tattoo removal treatment?
The longer you have had a tattoo, the easier it is to remove with a laser. Someone who has had a tattoo for 15 years will be able to get their tattoo off in fewer treatments than someone who has had the same tattoo for 1 or 2 years.
Tattoo pigmentation or color is foreign to your body and your body wants to get rid of it if it can. The pigment that is used in your tattoo is slightly too big for your body’s immune system to easily carry away and flush out of your body. The idea behind laser tattoo removal is to break down the ink into small enough pieces for your body to carry away. Your body naturally starts doing this very same thing the moment your tattoo is placed. It takes your body much longer than a laser but after 10 to 15 years, your body has chipped away at the edges enough to get the process started. This is why as your tattoo ages, it tends to get fuzzy and blurry.
The color of ink dictates the size of the particle in your skin. Black ink is much bigger than white and so you see black will stay longer than white which usually fades fairly quickly. When the particles are smaller, they tend to rise and spread in the skin and flake out as your skin cells turn over. This is the reason black ink is usually used as an outline to anchor the color of your tattoo in place. When that black outline is removed, the color naturally fades much more quickly because it is not being held in place.
The last important component of time and tattoo removal is new tattoos. As a nurse practitioner I do treatments on an unwanted tattoo as soon as possible. If someone has a brand new tattoo I would recommend doing a treatment early on in order to avoid the ink setting in completely. Once a new tattoo is completely set in and the irritation to the skin in that area is gone, it takes several more treatments to remove the tattoo. I am not saying do the removal the same day but as soon as it is no longer tender to the touch or red to the eye. Most of the time I can perform a first laser tattoo removal treatment in about a week from the tattoo being placed. The bigger the tattoo, the longer you must wait to heal the area enough for a first treatment simply because the body’s resources are spread more thinly with a larger area. Certainly the body’s immune system plays a big role as well. Healthy people heal much faster than folks with uncontrolled health issues such as diabetes.
If you have any more questions regarding age of tattoo and laser tattoo removal please feel free to contact me at anytime. Lynette Kennedy, family nurse practitioner and certified laser specialist at info@newlookhouston.com.
