How Long Does It Take to Remove a Tattoo?

The number of treatment sessions would depend on several factors eg The Colors involved, anatomical location of the tattoo, your Fitzpatrick skin type (how well you tan), layering, amount of ink and the presence of scarring or tissue change. 

Because it will take time for your body to absorb the pigment particles after the laser procedures, procedures need to be spaced at 4-6 week intervals.

Tattoo removal is a complicated procedure. There are several factors that will determine how many treatments you will need. These factors include: color, location on body, layering, scarring and ethnicity. Colors that are easier to remove are blacks, dark blues and reds. All other colors are harder to remove and are typically more expensive to treat as well. The location of the tattoo on your body also will help or hinder the treatments needed. Tattoos closer to your heart, such as chest and  neck, will require less treatments. If a tattoo was layered over another tattoo, that also will increase your treatment numbers tremendously, simply because there is a lot more ink that needs to be dissolved. Scarring will create a rough thick layer that will hinder the laser’s penetration depth making it trickier to treat a tattoo. Because all tattoo removal lasers target pigment, a darker skinned person may need more treatments at lower levels to prevent the laser from targeting their natural skin tone and causing hypopigmentation. Treatments typically are scheduled about a month apart.

There different lasers available for tattoo removal such as the YAG or RUBY Laser.  It usually requires 8-10 treatments for significant fading. The treatments are given one month apart.

Having a tattoo removed using a laser, will usually generate very nice results in time.  Typically, most tattoos will disappear or come close to disappearing after approximately 6 treatments.  Between each treatment you will have to wait about 4 weeks for the skin to heal.  The colors in the tattoo can also determine how many sessions you may need.  Green and yellow pigments tend to take more treatments for the color to go away.  I would contact your plastic surgeon to see how many treatments he thinks would be needed for it to be removed.

In my practice, we offer the PicoWay laser to treat tattoos with minimal discomfort and no anesthesia. The PicoWay laser can also treat a wide variety of colors that we could once not treat in the past, such as green! We recommend 6 treatments, with 1 month between each treatment. In order to achieve the best results, we recommend scheduling a consultation with a board certified dermatologist.