My Experience With Laser Tattoo Removal

In 2017 I began the process of getting 2 tattoos removed. I had another blog post that I was documenting the experience on, but I stopped keeping up with it because to be honest I got quite frustrated with the process (more on that below). But I’ve been getting many requests for updates recently, so I figured I’d just start from scratch with this new post.

To give you a quick recap, going back to the beginning…

Mom was right. Of course I knew she was all along. I got my first tattoos when I was 18. Well, the first one was just shy of my 18th birthday, so I felt all sorts of cool and rebellious for being a tattooed 17-year-old. That one was a floral design on the top of my foot, which was actually a quite beautiful and well-done tattoo. I started to dislike it when I realized it just looked like a big tacky blob on my foot, especially when I was dressed up.

The second was a bow on my wrist. While the bow bears a lot of meaning to me, I got it done at a terrible tattoo parlor and even getting it fixed by a better artist didn’t help much. I pretty much never liked this tattoo and always kept it as covered up as possible. Over the years I’ve gotten 3 more tattoos, all of which are small and pretty hidden. I still like those tattoos and am keeping them.

As for the other two – I began to dislike them to the point that I decided it was time to bite the bullet and begin the process of getting them removed. I found a doctor in NYC and started going for treatments about every 12 weeks. It started out quite promising, but after about 5-6 sessions and seeing very little difference I started to get frustrated.

On top of that, I was experiencing severely negative after-effects, but I thought they were normal so I just pushed through it. I wish I had photos of it, but to be honest it was pretty gross. After some treatments I’d experience extreme redness and even a rash over my entire foot, but the worst was that I’d get a blister that covered nearly the entire top of my foot. It was nasty. I know that some blistering, redness and scabbing is normal after a laser treatment, but in retrospect this was definitely not normal. On top of all of that, this doctor used a cryo/freezing machine to numb the area. Not only was that uncomfortable in itself, but it wasn’t very effective and I still felt a ton of pain from the laser.

Having those reactions and the numbing pain paired with seeing such little results, I decided to go to someone new for the remainder of the removal. I found Dr. Shah at Smarter Skin Dermatology through a friend, and I soooo wish I had found her from the start!

First of all, Dr. Shah uses a needle for local numbing injections. That part is painful, but it’s very quick and made the pain from the actual laser nearly nonexistent. But more importantly, after just one laser removal treatment with Dr. Shah I saw more results than I saw in the previous 3-4 treatments I had. I also had very little redness/scabbing afterward, and zero blistering.

Here is my wrist after just 2 treatments from Dr. Shah. It’s so barely noticeable, I may not get any more laser treatments done! Updated pic of my foot coming soon.

With all that to be said, I’m glad I’m finally almost done with the whole process and definitely learned a ton from it. Here are the answers to some of the top questions I’ve gotten.

How long did it take?
I’ve honestly lost count but I believe so far I’ve had 8 treatments. My wrist tattoo is pretty much gone and my foot will probably take 2 more (so 10 total). You have to wait 6-12 weeks between treatments.

How much did it cost?
It depends on the size of your tattoo(s) and probably also where you’re located, but in general for a small tattoo you’re looking at around $200 per treatment.

Is laser tattoo removal painful?
I’m not going to sugarcoat it – yes, the laser is extremely painful. Way more painful than getting the actual tattoo in my opinion. However it is pretty quick (especially if you have a smaller tattoo), and I’d definitely recommend going somewhere that uses a numbing cream, or even better local numbing injections.

Was it worth it?
Even with all of the annoying/painful parts, I’d still go through it again. Those tattoos didn’t feel like a true representation of myself so I’m glad they’re (almost) gone and I don’t have to think about trying to cover them up anymore.

What I wish I did differently
Looking back, I should’ve gone to someone based on referral as opposed to just finding online. I also wish I at least got a second opinion earlier on when I was seeing minimal results and experiencing the after-effects that I was.

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I hope you found this information helpful! As a reminder I am not an expert, this is just my personal experience and opinions. I’ll be sure to update this post with final before/after photos.