What should you do when you get a tattoo that grows increasingly revolting as you grow older? Do you cover it up with a bigger and more elaborate work? If you wish to get a cover-up, know that it costs a lot more than getting a fresh tattoo. Also, cover-ups are not jobs that are readily taken up by tattoo artists, given the intricate design that is necessary to camouflage the original disaster.

If a tattoo you received in the past has become undesirable and a cover-up tattoo isn’t in the cards for you, you don’t have to live with it. Thanks to laser tattoo removal, you can finally get rid of that unsightly tattoo.

What Makes Tattoos Permanent?

Permanent tattoos can last a lifetime. They may change with your body shape over time, but the ink will stick around forever. For long, it was assumed that tattoos are permanent because ink saturates the skin. Tattoos last because of specialized cells called macrophages. When the needle pricks the skin to inject the ink, these macrophages rush to the site and absorb the ink.

When the damaged cells are ingested, the ink persists in the membrane of the macrophages. Macrophages have a limited life and when they perish the ink is left behind in the same pattern in the skin. New macrophages rush in and continue the battle with the ink. The end result is permanent ink under the skin! Equipped with this information, you will now understand why laser energy is critical in removing traces of the tattoo.

Laser Tattoo Removal Using the Alma Laser

To successfully erase traces of a tattoo, there are three deciding factors that should be taken into account: depth, size, and color of the ink. When the tattoo craze set in, most of them were a single color which was either blue or black. Because of this, the 1064 nm Nd: YAG laser was developed as a gold standard for eliminating dark tattoo ink.

Tattoos of today have a variety of different colors, making the previously sought after laser ineffective. Now, lasers in use must be capable of emitting multi-wavelengths to target the spectrum of colors used on the skin.

Alma laser offers precisely this – varied wavelengths specific for a color. Dark ink removal is through the standard 1064 nm Nd: YAG, provided by PicoClear and Harmony XL PRO; Red, orange and yellow is addressed by 532 nm KTP (PicoClear); Green removal again by 650 nm PicoClear; 694 nm for resistant black and green ink, provided by Sinon; and, 585 nm for light blue and dark blue provide by PicoClear.

Principle Of Laser Tattoo Removal

Anything that comes under the glare of laser is disintegrated to smaller pieces. These molecules are readily flushed by the body. Tattoo clearance is dependent on the exposure time: more time equals greater removal. Traditional nanosecond lasers can remove tattoos, but the number of sittings may be too overwhelming for the patient.

An alternative is the picosecond laser which promises the same benefits as the traditional nanosecond laser in a short time. The latest advancement in lasers for tattoo removal is ultrafast picosecond pulses of light energy that can rapidly shatter the ink to cause a speedy tattoo removal.

Contact Our Office

If you have a tattoo that you want to get rid of, it’s time to try the Alma Laser to get it removed. Contact the Advanced Plastic Surgery Center to learn more about this innovative laser technology and get rid of those unwanted tattoos today.