Tattoo Remorse

This past Saturday 10/10 was my first session. I have a friend that works as a nurse and skin therapist and she has been wonderful for my self-esteem and confidence going into the whole procedure. I wasn't sure if PicoSure was the right laser for me, but she's used other lasers before and said that she's never quite seen the results that they get with the Pico laser. She's honestly helped me work through all the jargon that these doctors throw at you and I feel much better for it. She's also helping me through the recovery stages so that I don't end up with nasty scars and marks on my arm for ages. So to go through the procedure: I ended up ordering a numbing cream from a compound pharmacy and they put it on at the office 30 mins prior to my appointment. It felt really funny and they really slathered it on (which I don't think that they were suppose to cause I could have used it again) but any way I found out that they offer a similar cream and got them to write down the ingredients and ran it by my friend and she said that would be fine. So there's $25 saved. Once I was in the appointment room they whipped the area down and cleaned it. Then started to apply the cooling air to it just prior to starting. I can only describe the feeling like having someone pinpoint splashing grease on your arm ... it was still pretty painful ( I feel for anyone that does it without some sort of pain relief). I couldn't see but the doctor was saying the it was responding well, I have photos attached of the setting used so that I can remember for next time. Also snapped a photo straight after (you can see the beautiful frosting effect that you're looking to achieve). And I've attached a few healing shots as well. I kept mine wrapped the way they had it for about 36 hours, I couldn't stand it longer than that. I've been keeping it moist with bepanthan Antiseptic cream and am going out to get a Dermatix silicone sheet to keep it wrapped up and healing. My friend recommend this to help prevent raised scaring and pigmentation change. Under the sheet i'll keep bepanthan and sunscreen. Fingers crossed that I'll see some more fading in the next few weeks. But only 20 days until I leave for holiday (going to be cold so i'll be able to wear long sleeves!) Any other tips or tricks would be much appericated I have another friend that does yoga theraphy and is helping me with some asans to promote good blood flow and manage the stress that this whole thing has been putting on me so hopefully that will help. Cannot wait for this all to be over....

I am really anxious to get going with my removal but I'm trying to be patient. I am starting to see some shedding on my test patch and the lines have blown out a bit and the area where the shading was looks like I have a tan. Hoping that this coming weekend when I have my second consult with the other skin clinic here I'll know what I want. Looking to get my first full treatment being of September. Any tips on what I can do to make the process go faster would be appreciated. Any advise on taking care of the area after treatment?

So I've made the decision to wait a little longer until I zap my tattoo. I have heard that 4-6 weeks is the best time to start if you want it done early because things are healed and settling but not complete locked in. I booked a consult with another clinic that a friend recommended. The have a different laser and I'm just getting confused because i'm not sure which will be best for me. I am leaning towards the PicoSure because there are a lot of people here that say it's the best for black but then I read other reviews that say it's not as good as everyone says. The girl that i had my consult with showed me a few of her tattoos that she had removed with the q-switch and she said she'd never do that again because it scared so much... just really confused so i figured it's better to just wait, let it heal and really do my research. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am in a much better spot with the tattoo and I don't get as embarrassed about it, but I do still have those moments where I try to wipe it off... hopefully i can get 2 treatments in before I go back to the US to visit family. Luckily it'll be winter, yay sweaters!