In the past year I’ve cut off my knee length dreadlocks, removed my 15+ piercings and now I am on a mission to remove my tattoos. I got my first tattoo at the age of 19; Simba from the Lion King, in bright blue. I’ve gained another 6 and all of these have been done in Thailand, with both bamboo (in a remote jungle village) and a gun (my elephant tattoo in Koh Samui).
These are the 5 tattoo’s I have decided to remove, I have wanted to get rid of the elephant for a while (I don’t think it was ever a good quality tattoo). The reason I’ve chose to remove these 5 first are predominantly because these are in highly visible places on my body. The next task is to sew up my saggy ear…
Pre-appointment
I found a tattoo removal surgery in San Francisco who uses PicoWay technology. James had great reviews on Yelp so I sent an email and got a quote for my 5 tattoos and was very pleased with the price! A few weeks later I went in for a free consultation where James went over the procedure including the do’s and do not’s pre and post ‘surgery’.
I asked how many session I would need as the cost is based per session and you must wait 6–8 weeks before you go in again, the longer you leave it between sessions the less you spend as time helps the tattoos fade. James said his guess would be 6–8 sessions for my 5 tattoos but he said this is dependent on the quality of the ink, if the ink is poor quality it is likely to take longer. I scheduled an appointment and the days went by where I really considered about whether I would regret removing them. After all, the memories they came with were pretty incredible.
The appointment
My appointment was on the 27th October 2020 at 10am PST, I had forgotten all about my appointment the day before which made me realise that I really didn’t feel upset about removing them — the memories were not going anywhere. The whole appointment took about an hour, on arrival one of the lady’s applied numbing cream to my tattoos and covered them in cling film. I waited half an hour and then James called me in! I walked into the room and it was incredibly clean and organised which was comforting. We spoke about which tattoo would be removed first and chose to do my wrist first. I put on eye protection goggles and James applied an ice pack to my tattoo for 10 seconds which was then followed up by a cold air dryer. I closed my eyes and the laser was put on on the count of 3.
How did it feel?
Just like James explained — like a rubber band flicking on your skin, the sounds accompanying it made it feel more uncomfortable however — you can hear sparking noises. As my wrist tattoo is small it didn’t take long, no more than 20 seconds. When I looked down I saw my tattoo’s black ink was surrounded by raised white swelling which is apparently what you want to happen. Next were my ankle tattoos which took a bit longer as they’re bigger tattoos, these hurt more and this is where I started to smell my skin burning which was unpleasant. James informed me that these would be zapped on a lower setting as ankles are prone to swelling, still bloody hurt though! Then the neck tattoo, that went by quickly, dreading my last one — my elephant, saved the worse till last, perhaps that was a bad move. The elephant took what felt like a long time but it was probably about 1–2 minutes, I didn’t take any breaks, the smell of my skin sizzling was difficult to not focus on but I tried my best to just think of happy thoughts. After every tattoo James bandaged the tattoos and wrapped them with ice packs on top (he supplied this at a very small additional cost ~$5 for 16).
Post-appointment
Getting the bus home was a bit of a challenge, I looked like the hulk with my bulging left arm that had 4 ice packs on and my ankles carrying heavy weight bricks. I got some weird looks on the bus which was funny. Once I got home I chucked the extra ice packs in the freezer and my fiancé spent the rest of the day helping me replace the ice packs once they were no longer cold. James suggested to do this 3 times and more if it looked like it was swelling. We stayed on top of it all day and changed the ice packs every couple of hours (although the ice was never that frozen) which I think really helped with the healing. I took Ibuprofen every 4 hours for the first day and a half to help with the swelling, the elephant was very swollen. I kept my bandages on and didn’t shower or leave the house for 2.5 days. It is important not to raise your blood temperature as it can increase swelling.
After the 2.5 days of resting and no showering the tattoos looked normal with minor swelling, apart from the elephant which was red and sore with the ink visibly broken up. James predicted this as the elephant tattoo was shaded so the ink is easier to break. Now, all my tattoo’s look pretty much the same as they did pre PicoWay, I have not bothered to attach photo’s of these because you can’t see much change — James said this was normal. However the elephant has visibly less ink and is broken (see picture below at 6 days post PicoWay).
If you have any questions about my tattoo removals please don’t hesitate to ask. Additionally, follow my blog to keep up to date with my progress.
