The Journey Begins: Tattoo Removal Nova Scotia, NS

At my place of work (a professional office), my tattoos have always been a bone of contention. I've always needed to wear long-sleeved shirts to keep them covered.

It's been really inconvenient, especially in the heat of summer, or during pregnancy.

I was approached recently, to see if the removal was something I'd consider. I decided that this would be something I wanted to do.

I have other tattoos, but the ones on my wrists have never been a favorite of mine, and they seriously effect my comfort level at work.

By some miracle, a laser tattoo removal clinic just opened up a few months ago, just around the corner from my office. They happened to have a q-switch laser which allows for removal of nearly all colours of tattoo ink.

Today I underwent my first removal session.

Since the clinic is a 1 minute walk from my office, I went over on my lunch break.

The process itself was painful. It wasn't excruciating or anything, but it really sucked. I think the best way to describe it would be that it feels like a cross between being snapped really hard with an elastic, and having hot grease splatter your skin...I found that if I focused on taking long breaths, it eased some of the pain.

It was a really quick process. I would say it took maybe 15 minutes for both stars to be lasered, and that included the time it took for her to switch lasers to target different colours.

Afterwards, my wrists were slightly swollen and stung like I had scalded the area with hot water. I took a tylenol and now (3 hours later) the area feels fine.

It's really hard to know how many treatments it will take, or if they will even be able to remove the tattoos completely. Because of the lighter pink and blues, I may be left with some bits of my tattoos when all is said and done. I'm really optimistic that we'll get them almost gone though.

Depending on how I heal, it will be 4-8 weeks before my next treatment.

The pink star has some bleeding, just because they use a different laser frequency for those colors..and I guess my skin didn't like it.

The tattoos look deceptively lighter already, but this is not due to color loss. My skin is ashy because it's burnt. The tattoos will darken up temporarily before my body begins to break down and remove the ink particles.

I will be posting updates here.

I was really happy with the progress of my tattoo removal after the first session. There was noticeable fading even after that first session (March 7th).

Since then I have had my second session on April 17th, and my third on May 22.

With each session, the pink star has seemed to be more resistant, yet have more of a severe reaction. That star is targeted with a different wavelength and needs to be stronger..so it always blisters a little, scabs more and takes longer to heal up.

The third treatment, Linda cranked up the laser for the pink star, since there was very little change between the 1st and 2nd treatments. It didn't hurt any more than normal during the treatment (in all actuality, the blue one always hurts more during the lasering), but afterwards it was much more painful and blistered a ton. The scab has since lifted, and I noticed much more fading this time. It seems as though the dark pink is VERY resistant though. There's been very little effect on it so far.

The blue star is fading nicely as well. It always seems to heal up much faster than the pink one!

I have to say, I am very glad that I have taken photos of the process. Sometimes I look at the tattoos and feel like we're not making any progress at all...but then when I look at photos of where I started with them, I do notice significant change, which keeps me hopeful that they will be gone, eventually.

The treatments are always something I have mixed emotions about. I am SO excited to be getting another treatment, knowing that it'll fade my tattoos even more, but at the same time, I dread it. It is pretty painful. I have told Linda a couple of times that if the procedure wasn't as quick as it is (about 15 minutes), there's no way I could go through with it. Maybe it's because wrists are very sensitive areas to begin with?

At my last treatment, I did find that if I talk and talk and talk (even if it is just nonsense), while she is lasering, it's much easier to keep my mind of the pain. Thankfully as well, after the treatment is done, the pain is pretty much gone, except for some sun-burn like feeling.

As far as after-care goes, I have been applying polysporin as needed for the first few days, and washing with mild soap. Once the blistering is healed, I start applying jojoba oil to keep the area moist and reduce the itchiness! I have been eating as healthy as possible and taking vitamins as well, to aid my body in removing the ink. I've also been trying to exercise more, as that will help the lymph system flush things out better.

I don't know if it is just a coincidence, but I have noticed that within a week or so after treatments, I am so tired and not myself! Must be to do with what is in the ink?

I am set to go to treatment number 4 on June 26th. Can't wait to see what results that yields! I may ask her to crank up the laser on blue star this time, just to see if we can get some more of a change out of it.