hi I'm dr. Michelle Ellern, a cosmetic physician here at reflections,
and today we are talking about tattoo removal
so tattoo mole has advanced over this period of time and today we're going to go through
the advances that have come about in the last couple years that have made tattoo removal easier
than ever so did you know that over 70 million people have tattoos and over half of them are
considering removal so there's some things that have made Tetsuo mole more complex over the years
including the advent of more semi-permanent makeup micro bleeding and the like those tattoos can be
sometimes easier and sometimes more challenging depending on the type of ink and the materials
that are used in them so you really need to go to a place that has a number of different lasers that
can be utilized for removal and also providers who know how to deal with different types of
ink different colors of ink and when we should and should not remove them different inks can
have different responses when we hit them with lasers some of them can change color such as
white tattooing some of them can be harder to remove than others so we just need to evaluate
the type of tattoo you have and kind of find out what the history of it is as much as you're able
to provide and determine if this tattoo is able to be removed so we are able to remove pretty
much any size tattoo we may if it's large enough decide to split it in two separate sittings just
for the sake of you know ease both of the patients the ability to numb a larger tattoo or just the
recovery afterwards because the bigger and the more inked the more attraction the laser has
and the more downtime you may have of swelling especially if it's on a limb like the arm little
tattoos are much quicker they will take a mere seconds to remove we will injection numb them if
you're nervous about the discomfort of it because it can feel like hot grease bladder when you're
doing it it's fairly uncomfortable so numbing it is a way to get through it to make it a little
easier we have a couple different tattoo lasers that we can utilize so when we're deciding what
tattoo laser to use we have to look at the the response how much inks in there what our goals
are and we come up with a stepwise plan if it's a multicolor tattoo we have to utilize one type of
laser and one type of setting first to tone down some of the darkness some of the blackness in it
and then move on to starting to pick off some of the individual colors there is more advancements
to help move these things along quicker as time has gone on there's ways to clear some of the
frosting that occurs which is the water that comes up to the surface of skin that creates
a white haze over the tattoo after to treat it which you will see if you watch a lot of tattoo
removal videos that can help you clear doubts and we can do multiple passes depending on the amount
of ink and the response so tattoo Ramola has been advancing fairly quickly over the years the laser
that we utilize mainly is the pq4 it's the highest power picosecond laser on the market it has two
different wavelengths in it it has an ND egg 1064 and a 532 works really well picoseconds actually
fire more rapidly than a traditional nanosecond laser what that does is creates a vibrational
effect that will help break the ink particles up even more effectively than just laser alone so it
actually will help clear the ink out the way the tattoo removal works is that we're using lasers
to break these particles and the smaller we can break them in the more readily we can break them
the faster it'll clear out the room your body tattoo removal can be done every six to eight
weeks and the clearing of the ink takes around three months so you can do them more frequently
than the ink is clearing just to try and keep it moving along and we will analyze how many
treatments you need based on what your tattoo looks like how big it is how many colors that
sort of thing so when we are talking about tattoo removal we're actually aiming the laser into your
skin and professional tattoo artists who are good will have a very consistent even pressure when
they're placing the tattoo on there that's what you know the steady hand the even application
that's what makes things look really nice so that ink will be laid out in a very consistent
pattern at a particular depth within your skin when you're talking about ones that are done
professionally that can vary as to the depth and that can be a challenge when removing it
because the ink can be very close to the surface or it could be very deep we do remove home done
tattoos as well but we would analyze yours and see what's going on when we are talking about
both professional and non-professional there can be some scarring that occurred to the skin
during the process of having the tats who put on so when we are looking at the skin we may
have to use some of our other lasers that are not our Pico Pico second pq4 or our cues with
true brq switch Alex that we traditionally use we may have to go to resurfacing lasers so when
the resurfacing lasers that we utilize can be our Fraxel restore and repair one is a non ablative
fractionated laser and one is a an ablative one it's a little more aggressive what that's doing is
actually resurfacing those scars and allowing the ink particles that are trapped within those scars
to be released with that people have done tattoo removal by questionable methods at home and that
can create scarring too so if you are trying to have a tattoo removal it's best to have it
done by professionals that know what they're doing who use caution and care to remove this as to not
create a secondary problem when you're doing your tattoo removal so what is new and tattoo removal
upcoming so we are using PFD which is helps to clear some of the whiteness out that can allow us
to do multiple passes and that's becoming more and more part of the regimen especially as we get to
the end of the tattoo removal cycle for patients there's also an acoustic shockwave technology
that's coming out sleet it later this year that's to be used with some of the lasers that we already
employ to help move along this process even more quickly so keep posted if you're interested in
that we probably will have a video when we are able to acquire that technology so why come to
reflections versus going somewhere else I think the most important thing whenever you're deciding
where to go is having people who do this all the time who know how to utilize the technology who
have the technology have the experience to know when to treat to know when not to treat even more
so than anything else and to problem shoot as we go along and make sure that we are correcting
the issues that we need to correct treating the problems that we need to treat and removing the
tattoo as quickly and efficiently as possible so you can get back to your regular life and
enjoy your tattoo free body however you choose so if you have found this video helpful please
give it a like and if you'd like to see more videos like this please subscribe to our Channel