Tattoo Removal (Laser tattoo removal and skin graft)

I guess I was lucky that in my teens and early twenties I avoided the horrors of the tattoo shop. Now many of my friends are in their forties and fifties they are thinking again about the wisdom of having a band logo tattooed on their arm or (in one case) Rude words across the knuckles. I have only one tattoo and that is a little dot that happened when somebody threw a drafting pen at me, I caught it and the nib stuck in... ouch!

Friend 1 who had an inappropriate tattoo of an ex boyfriends name on her arm did start out by suggesting that her husband change his name to Gary. He refused and so she headed for the laser tattoo clinic. It took 6 treatments to remove and each one was more painful than the last, however her tattoo is now just about invisible. When the healing process fades it will be gone completely her removal artist said. She testifies that laser tattoo removal is far more painful than getting the tattoo done to start with. She was lucky though - her tattoo was monochrome black/grey the easiest to remove.

Friend 2 had a botch job of a tattoo that was a kind of multi-colored splodge. It was once, he insists, a bunch of flowers but it spread because it was tattooed wrongly. The trouble with multi-colors is they do not take to laser treatment too well. After four sessions it still looked as awful as ever so he decided to go for the ultimate solution and have it surgically removed and a three inch circular area of skin grafted over the spot. Not only was this painful for weeks and incredibly expensive but now he has to avoid the sun since the new skin plus its scar tans unevenly.

Please think carefully before you have any sort of tattoo done. Think 'will I still want this when I am 85?' If the answer is yes then get a monochrome black/grey tattoo, at least they can be removed using a laser tattoo removal machine!