DOES LASER TATTOO REMOVAL HURT?

It's the first question to cross people's lips: Does laser tattoo removal hurt?

The short answer is that IT SHOULDN'T. Safe and effective anesthetics have been in wide use since the early 1940s, so there's no excuse for not using them, right?

Maybe you've seen the videos on the Internet of people writhing and screaming as their friends--and even the technician!--tell them to suck it up. Let's face it, pain isn't cute, no matter how much you try to dress it up in a video. We're not talking about getting-a-tattoo pain, either. This pain is on a whole new level.

So why doesn't everybody numb up for laser tattoo removal?

Let's back up a little.

Laser tattoo removal works by shattering trapped ink crystals in the skin's live layer--the dermis--without breaking skin. With the latest picosecond lasers, such as our PicoSure, that explosion is extremely effective, reducing the ink to very fine particles so that the body's immune system can safely remove them. This shattering happens in a veritable "forest" of pain nerves. This would be extremely painful were it not for effective numbing.

The best numbing medicines are available only by prescription, which is probably the main reason non-physicians attempting laser tattoo removal commonly don't provide them. To be truly effective, topical anesthetics must be used properly. Improper application is a common error made by well-meaning practitioners, contributing to the myth that numbing doesn't help.

Also, there is a myth on the street that treatments are less effective with anesthetics. It sounds like something our mother would say ("It has to hurt to work!"), but it's simply not true. In reality, treatments are more effective with numbing, because the pain can be so severe that people will cancel their future appointments over anticipated pain, and tattoos don't get removed that way.

The overwhelming majority of our patients enjoy their treatments and look forward to the next. That's the way to do laser tattoo removal humanely, putting the patient first.

Laser tattoo removal SHOULD NOT HURT. Don't let it. And don't let anyone talk you into it.

Richard Rosol, MD
Owner, TattooMedics