PicoSure Laser Tattoo Removal
One of the most exciting changes in the practice over the past ten years has been the introduction of PicoSure. PicoSure is made byCynosure, it’s a laser that addresses primarily tattoo removal. We started looking into this about eighteen months ago and honestly I wasn’t really sure where tattoo removal fit into our practice, but I have to tell you it’s been absolutely fascinating and let me first start by sharing with you the differences between this technology and the technologies that used to be used. In the past, if somebody wanted a tattoo removed they would undergo many treatments, anywhere from fifteen to twenty treatments, with a type of technology we call Q-switched, and really, these treatments worked mostly on the darker, black tattoos and didn’t work very well on most of the other colors.
A Q-switch laser works by what we call photo thermal changes, so the laser light is targeting the tattoo pigment, breaking it up into chunks and creating an inflammatory reprocess, it’s heating up the tissue, the heat causes absorption of some of the tattoo pigment but the heat also produces changes in the skin, often times undesirable changes with regards to hypo or hypo-pigmentation, changes in the color of the skin, it can also leave behind scarring. With the introduction of PicoSure, PicoSure is a technology, it’s the world’s most advanced technology that fires at one trillionth of a second. A Pico second is to a second as a second is to thirty thousand years, it’s extraordinarily fast, it’s absolutely amazing and because it’s so fast what it’s doing now is that it’s shattering that ink particle into dust, so it’s a photo mechanical result and we don’t have the problems with temperature creating issues in the skin resulting in scarring.
A treatment that might take twenty sessions with the Q-switch laser, probably won’t take more than ten sessions with PicoSure. The truth of the matter is, after a single treatment with PicoSure probably seventy five percent of that tattoo is removed, most tattoo’s are removed within three to six treatments. One of the things that I find so fascinating about PicoSure is the size of the technology is so wonderful and we can guarantee results, is that the stories people have about their tattoo regret are just absolutely fascinating. What we’re learning is many patients have regret, they were young, they did something when they were drunk or high, they made bad decisions, but even more interesting to me is people like their art, love their art and they just want to reduce something that doesn’t look so good and replace it or cover it up with art that is more appealing.
One of the other advantages of the PicoSure technology is that we can address all colors quite well, so it doesn’t matter now if you have a yellow or a blue or a green or a black tattoo, all of these colors are addressed quite well, and we’re guaranteeing at least ninety five percent, and most of the time one hundred percent treatment of the tattoo. In the past, the Q-switch laser tattoo technologies, most of the time left uncompleted tattoo removal that is, many of the patients we’re seeing with PicoSure now are from these recalcitrant tattoos that is, it looked muddy and dirty, it just didn’t take care of the tattoo. With PicoSure we have technology that can completely eradicate the tattoo so there are no visible signs.
Many patients who we are seeing who have tattoo regret, tattoos that they started to treat in the past and were maybe promised that their tattoo would be gone, have a lot of skepticism, their very hesitant about why now, what’s different, and there are many studies I would suggest to individuals, that they maybe Google PecoSure and learn the technology more, but this is a completely different technology and we are treating patients, we are guaranteeing that their tattoos will be resolved. Unlike tattoo removal in the past, where patients would pay x amount of dollars per session, never knowing when those sessions would end and never knowing what the end point would be, we are approaching this differently. With PecoSure, we can guarantee results, after we evaluate your tattoo we will give you honest opinions on what we can do with that tattoo.
So our approach is to let you know upfront how the tattoo will be treated, what your costs are and we will treat you until we deliver our promise. Many tattoos have multiple colors in them, in the past many tattoos had blue and green colors, blue and green were very difficult colors to remove with the Q-switch technologies. With PecoSure, blue and green are some of the primary and easiest tattoos to remove, that being said all of the colors are removed with PecoSure, that was not the case with prior technologies. The PicoSure tattoo removal process is fairly simple. Patients come in and they typically do not require any lidocaine, we typically do not use any topical anesthetic agents, what we do is we blow some very cold air on the area which helps with the treatment, while the treatment isn’t pleasant, all of our patients have tolerated it. There are certain parts of the body where things may be a little more sensitive but the treatments are so fast the patients overall tolerate the procedure very well.
Depending on the size of the tattoo, the treatment can take less than a minute to maybe eight minutes, it just depends on the size of the tattoo. Typically we’re treating patients every six weeks, because most tattoos are removed between three to six treatments, we’re looking at less than six months typically to remove a tattoo. With the prior technologies, we were looking at treatments that even after a year and a half or two years, we still had a muddy appearing tattoo that wasn’t completely removed.
