Page 63 - An Introduction to Laser Tattoo Removal

Chapter 2 – Fundamentals of Laser Tattoo Removal v1.0
appear as a ‘graying’ of the colour. So, the white spots may not appear, but rather a more subtle change might occur.
Some people make the mistake of ‘chasing the frosting’ – they set their laser fluence based on the frosting appearing. You should not do this. Many ink colours will simply not ‘frost’, especially if they are deep in the dermis.
As long as you see a change in the tattoo after treatment, including erythema (reddening of the surrounding skin) and oedema (swelling of the tattoo area) then you can be assured that the tattoo has reacted to the laser energy. This may take a few minutes to show up, so be patient.
If nothing appears after ten minutes, then either you have used too low a fluence, or your laser is not operating properly!
Pain and laser tattoo removal
Laser tattoo removal is often quoted as ‘painful’. My own experiences have been that around one third of patient feel it is more painful than getting a tattoo, one third say its similar and one third say it is less painful!
The pain felt during laser tattoo removal is caused primarily by the ink particles flying in all direction after absorbing the laser energy. This is easily verified by firing the laser at a non-tattooed area of the skin – virtually nothing is felt!
Kirby-Desai Scale
The Kirby-Desai Scale is a technique for estimating the number of laser treatments which a tattoo may require to achieve a successful result. Click here for a calculator.
This technique considers a number of factors in determining the number of treatments including:
Skin colour
Body location Amount of ink Number of layers of ink Tissue damage
Ink colour
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Chapter 2 LEVEL A Laser Tattoo Removal
© The Laser-IPL Guys, 2021
You can find a blog post here which discusses an interesting finding between the pain level felt with nanosecond and picosecond lasers.