one week later

Here is one week after my third treatment:

Not sure that I see much fading just yet. I also have a few little peel-y spots and those little pinpoint scabs left. Just waiting to see what happens!

third treatment and hopefully the last

Yesterday I had my third treatment and the laser tech was confident that this would be my last ! She actually said, “okay, you’re done” and thought that even without a treatment in about six months everything would be gone anyway. I’m in a wedding this summer, though, so I just went for it.

I forgot to take a picture before I left for the appointment, so here’s a quick one that I snapped before it started:

And here’s one about eight hours after:

I think the juice got turned up again for this last treatment, as it got very red and you can see a little bit of pinpoint bleeding in there. The good news is that it actually went super fast because there’s so much less ink…so while it did hurt, it lasted probably five minutes.

I’ll update as the weeks pass and we can just hope this was the last one!

It’s May!

I mentioned in an earlier post that my latest tech told me to wait until May to see what my tattoos looked like. It’s early May and here I am:

As you can see….still there. (and sorry about the water droplets, I just got out of the shower) I’m actually going away this weekend and running a Memorial Day race, so I’m thinking I’ll set up another session after that race. I feel like there is a bit of fading still going on, but I don’t think loads more time would make it disappear entirely like we’d hoped. Ah well.

The latest hope is that my next (third) session will do the trick!

One Month After Second Treatment

Okay, so here we go. One month after the second treatment:

I think that the fading from the last treatment is more clear now – woohoo!

Weird things that I’ve really come to notice, though, is that it doesn’t appear that there’s any real rhyme or reason for what areas fade more or less. There are some lines that have stayed dark-ish and then others that the line itself is still dark, but there are little clear spots where its broken up. Or there are areas that were so much lighter even before this treatment that I thought would disappear really quickly and haven’t.

My plan is to wait a few more weeks to see what happens, but I think I’ll need at least one more treatment in any areas still looming.

Three weeks!

Welp, here’s the three weeks later pictures:

So there’s a little bit of a lighting change, which is why I think the last picture made it seem like the tattoo was basically gone and I was whining anyway haha.

I think the double-pass of the laser definitely had a way faster fade effect than the single pass. I just keep thinking that even though the second laser tech told me things may disappear on their own that I’ll be back!

Two weeks after second session

We’re a day shy of two weeks since my second treatment, but, like I mentioned, I’m being impatient. Here’s a picture:

As you might notice, I didn’t get as much scrape-y bits this time, and since I’ve been staring at it every morning, there is probably a lot more fading than I feel like there is.

Also, having recently been nailed by bacon grease while cooking, I can definitely say the laser feels a lot like that, but you feel the heat more than just the sudden WOAH from grease.

I’ll post pictures every week, I think. Then in May we’ll see if I end up with another session (which, right now, it feels like will be happening).

One Week :/

Okay, here’s the image from one week after my second session.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel. There was a day or so of SERIOUS itchiness, but that’s all over now. I just can’t really tell if there’s much fading. I’m remind myself to be patient, but honestly, the tech telling me it may all disappear on its own after this I think gave me some excitement that’s making it hard for me to be positive right now.

In all fairness, they also say that most fading doesn’t happen until 3 weeks, so there is plenty of time for things to turn around, but we’ll see.

Oh well.

Two Days Later….

Since my first post had pictures from every couple of days, I figured I would just do mini posts to keep up with that. Here’s my two days later:

Some bits look, well, pretty blank! Totally exciting. Other bits are getting the little bit of bruising mixed up with the redness. I’m using an iPhone, so it’s also hard to see, but most of the solid lines had little dot-dots of disappearing ink (where the laser actually hits presumably). No real pain or tenderness; really I’d say it’s less sensitive than the first round.

As for what I do and how I take care of it….I’m a pretty avid runner, but for at least the first few days I don’t go. That really has more to do with placement, though. My sports bra would rub against it and I don’t want any extra irritation (and, for the record, I also wear strapless regular bras during the day for that reason). Other than that, I don’t really do anything special. I don’t put anything on it, I do try to wear looser fitting clothing, and I take an extra vitamin every now and then.

Second Session

So, in my last post I mentioned that the dermatology place that I went to for my consult and first session ended up having their laser unexpectedly leave.

Today, I went to a new place that I researched online (with loads of great reviews) for a consult and actually ended up having my second session done.

First, here’s a picture from yesterday:

When I got to my new place and met the laser tech, she was actually shocked that I only had one session because it’s so faded. She mentioned that the top tattoo (the branch) might end up fading away completely on its own with more time since it has only been a month and it reacted so well to the laser. After we talked a little bit more, I decided to go ahead and just have her zap both – it was going to be the same charge I kind of figured, why not?

I did learn quite a few differences between the two places. Initially, she had asked if the other place had the PicoSure laser, but they had Q-switch, too. At my first session, the laser tech went over my tattoos twice with the laser. This new tech told me that’s one method and actually has some risks that she doesn’t like to take – basically, while you can have more fading, you can also have more things like scarring or pigmentation problems. New tech let me know that she is more conservative, but that she was going to turn the laser settings up because of where my tattoo was in the fading process.

So, when we did this session, she had this kind of tube that looked like a vacuum attachment, but it blasted cold air. She did the laser and the cold air blasting at the same time. It hurt more than when I got the numbing shots (although the shots sucked), but wasn’t terrible, and was over really quickly. After the laser was done, she also applied silver sulfadiazine, which is usually used for burns. You can still see some of it hadn’t absorbed yet in the picture (which is about four hours after the treatment):

Basically, it’s just all super red again. I’m guessing it’s more red than last time because of the laser “volume” being turned up. It doesn’t hurt or feel tender really, but I’m sure it will for a couple days like last time. Oh AND the tech told me to wait until May because they may just disappear with that additional time! Yay my immune system, I guess!