Medium and Large Tattoo Removal
Medium and large sized tattoos are rarely found on the face. They are almost always body tattoos, which usually contain significantly more tattoo ink than permanent make-up pigmentations. Especially if they are full-surface tattoos or cover-ups, the skin is often literally soaked with pigments. With medium tattoos, it is still possible to remove the tattoo in most cases.
The skin is closed by the immune defence already a few minutes after the treatment. Scabs fall off after fourteen days at the latest, but complete regeneration can take several months. Often the last tender traces of treatment only disappear with the help of summer UV radiation, which strongly stimulates the melanocytes in the regeneration of the natural skin pigments.
After a SKINIAL treatment, the immune system continues to work on removing pigments. Therefore, many small pigment residues often “miraculously” disappear on their own after a few months. The UV rays of the sun additionally decompose remaining pigment traces over the summer.
The complete healing of a treatment is less related to the removal treatment itself than to the genetic skin condition and the individual wound healing behaviour. The aftercare of the treatment area by the client also has a major influence. Bright shiny areas indicate thin, not yet fully regenerated, skin.
In only three treatments, this 4×5 cm tattoo on the arm was removed.
Why SKINIAL does not treat large tattoos?
The desperation is sometimes evident in the clients’ requests, and we try to help where we can. Below we explain the limit of our method with two examples.
The two examples above are not that rare, but still extreme. No other cosmetic method can help here. In the case of cover-ups, laser is even very dangerous, as it can only cause one colour to burst, other colours (frequencies) risk burning with serious consequences for the neighbouring tissue.
SKINIAL is a small-particle, natural method of tattoo removal in which only the smallest amounts of physiological removal serum are used. This means that the skin is only slightly irritated, which is why side effects are very rare. However, both tattoos above contain a lot of pigments, for which many treatments would be necessary, as only a part would be removed at a time. We do not want to impose this lengthy ordeal on either our practitioners or our clients. Furthermore, our small-scale technique does not work as efficiently on large areas of especially single-coloured tattoos as a good laser treatment. However, the laser must be suitable, correctly adjusted and the practitioner must have sufficient experience, which is not easy for the client to verify in individual cases. See also our blog “The laser lie“ and “What doctors are hiding“.
In our view, it therefore makes sense for laser doctors to have an additional cosmetic removal method in their programme for those applications for which a laser is unsuitable.
Possible side effects
Basically, every treatment traumatises the skin and thus the immune system to a greater or lesser extent. The larger the area to be treated and the number of treatments, the higher the risk of scarring.
Smaller local treatments are easier for our organism to cope with. Different repair mechanisms and local defence reactions are available to it for this purpose. Everyone knows that a minor injury can usually result in subsequent reddening, slight pain and, depending on the trauma, scars. It is generally known when the body shows which defence reaction. However, each individual immune system can react more or less strongly and also overreact. Some people get visible scars more quickly than others. Although there are empirical values for this, no one can say for sure in advance when and for whom which reaction will occur.
In our experience, when larger areas are treated, the risk of undesired immune reactions also increases proportionally. We know this from the field of burns.
If, for example, larger areas of skin are burned, which is a dramatic form of traumatisation, the immune system switches up a notch and no longer reacts with rejection but tries to “seal” the skin surface with all means to protect it. This can also occur through a hypertrophic scar. It represents an erroneous reaction of the immune system, which leads to an overproduction of collagen at the treatment site and thus to an at least temporary scar. In rare cases, a keloid can also form, and further secondary reactions can be triggered. We do not want to take these risks in the interest of our clients.
Is it still possible to remove cosmetically after a laser treatment?
Many clients who have already had one or more laser treatments but can see little or no change then ask us if we can remove the tattoo.
Natural cosmetic removal is possible after laser removal under one condition. The laser treatments must not have damaged, burnt, or otherwise affected the dermis, and the pigments must not have been taken too deep into the skin by the laser.
For example, if there is scarring under the skin, natural rejection can no longer take place because the cells are scarred or have already been killed. To test this, we do a patch test (compatibility test) on a small area before treatment.
If the pigments come out after a laser treatment with our method, it can still happen that the areas remain white because the laser treatments have burnt the melanocytes, i.e., the cells that produce the skin pigment melanin, and thus destroyed them. Regeneration of the melanocytes is possible in principle, but it takes a long time.
Here you will find many before and after pictures of medium sized before and after pictures.