Page 59 - An Introduction to Laser Tattoo Removal

Chapter 2 – Fundamentals of Laser Tattoo Removal v1.0
There is currently a treatment known as ‘lymphatic drainage massage’ which purportedly assists the lymphatic drainage. It might be worth trying this procedure after a laser session to assist in the ink removal process. Who knows? It might even accelerate the whole process!!
Treating large tattoos
Tattoos come is a huge variety of sizes. The smallest tend to be a couple of letters or a symbol. These are quick to treat and, in fact, offer the best rate of return, financially!
But, you will likely come across someone with a large area of ink – their back or chest, or arm sleeves or similar. How do you approach these?
Well, consider that much of the ink removal is due to macrophage activity. When a tattoo is shattered by a laser, the wound response mechanism is triggered in the skin. As described before, this is a complex series of processes required to ‘fix’ the trauma inflicted by the laser. Part of this process involves the generation of a large number of new macrophage cells to clean up the mess.
This is the limiting factor – the body can only create a certain number of macrophages in any one time. Hence, it stands to reason that there is an upper limit to the size of the tattoo we should laser, in any one sitting. If we treat a larger area, we will simply ‘dilute’ the effectiveness of the macrophages.
So, it makes sense to limit the size of any single laser session. We recommend that this area should be around the size of a large dinner plate (or thereabouts). Leave around two weeks until the next session, on the next area.
This might be irritating for an individual patient, but if you explain the benefits in terms of more efficient clearing, then they will probably accept your advice.
What is the ‘best’ interval between laser tattoo sessions?
This is actually quite a difficult question to answer since it depends on many factors. These
factors include:
• State of patient’s skin
• Health of the patient
• Metabolic activity on the patients
• Exercise level of the patient
• Obesity
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Chapter 2 LEVEL A Laser Tattoo Removal
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