Scars after cover up tattoo

[4gus71n]

Hi,

I'm Agustin, couple of years ago I had a tattoo done in my arm with the name of my ex in it. After we broke up I went to have it covered up. This is like a mess after mess story, first mistake was having the name of someone else tattooed in my skin, second mistake was picking a really rookie tattoo artist to do the job. The tattoo is a pretty straightforward sunset with a couple of trees, watercolor-like tattoo. The first guy who did the tattoo mixed a lot of dark colors and the trees ended up looking like stains. Then I went to another guy to have him continue the cover, he did the best that he could, adding more colors and making the trees look like trees. I'm pretty happy with the work, so far the only problem is that the original tattoo is still visible, the scars are pretty visible and I'm trying to get rid of them.

I've been using a gel to heal scars for 5 months and I cannot see the slightest sign of recovery. I just want the original tattoo to be completely gone, It's really embarrassing having people to ask me what is beneath. I just want it gone. I'm not impatient I know that this F*** up is pretty much my fault, and that is going to take time to heal, but I'm afraid of wasting my time with this gel.

Any recommendation about how to heal/hide these scars?  

Thanks,

[rdinak]

Couple thoughts-The work looks good.

I have a large cover piece and understand cover work. You can see my post in the cover tattoo section.  Frequently Cover work is never going to make the first work completely invisible. What it does is draw attention to the new work. Full color saturation is seldom one and done. 

[SStu]

1st = What scars are you talking about? Tattoo related scars? If yes - how did that happen? That's not normal. 

2nd = Gel to remove scars? That's another new one. Is the gel a prescription? I'm never heard of anything that can remove scars - but you're going to have to elaborate on what kind of scars you're talking about . . . 

3rd = I can't see the original name tattoo in those pictures, but the watercolor style is not really the best option for doing a cover-up.  

[Hogrider]

If the gel hasn't helped in 5 months I think it's safe to stop using it. ;-)

I've had good luck with liquid vitamin E, but it's not quick. You have to use it every day for a couple of months. 

Go see someone that REALLY knows what they are doing. 99% of tattoo fuckups start with not doing your research (drunk, in a hurry, spur of the moment, etc.). Coverups aren't easy, you need a tattoo artist experienced in coverups. This isn't going to be cheap, quick or easy to fix; stop making it worse.

[4gus71n]

1 hour ago, SStu said:

1st = What scars are you talking about? Tattoo related scars? If yes - how did that happen? That's not normal. 

2nd = Gel to remove scars? That's another new one. Is the gel a prescription? I'm never heard of anything that can remove scars - but you're going to have to elaborate on what kind of scars you're talking about . . . 

3rd = I can't see the original name tattoo in those pictures, but the watercolor style is not really the best option for doing a cover-up.  

1) I'm attaching another image with the scars clearly visible

2) No prescription, is just a gel that is used to fade away scars, a friend told me about it.

3) I tried with laser removal before doing the cover, I went to 10 sessions and it only damaged the skin. I wait 3 months and then I did the first cover. 

[4gus71n]

52 minutes ago, Hogrider said:

If the gel hasn't helped in 5 months I think it's safe to stop using it. ;-)

I've had good luck with liquid vitamin E, but it's not quick. You have to use it every day for a couple of months. 

Go see someone that REALLY knows what they are doing. 99% of tattoo fuckups start with not doing your research (drunk, in a hurry, spur of the moment, etc.). Coverups aren't easy, you need a tattoo artist experienced in coverups. This isn't going to be cheap, quick or easy to fix; stop making it worse.

Thanks, I'm gonna do some research, go to see a dermatologist and see if he can recommend me another cream or gel. 

[SStu]

like a keloid scar?

[4gus71n]

28 minutes ago, SStu said:

like a keloid scar?

Yeah, exactly. I wasn't aware of the scientific name, but I googled it and yeah, is exactly that.

[SStu]

was it caused as a reaction of getting a normal tattoo?

[4gus71n]

53 minutes ago, SStu said:

was it caused as a reaction of getting a normal tattoo?

It was a reaction to the laser treatment. The original tattoo was something pretty simple just a text that said:

"Life TODO list:

-  Be Happy

- Love XXXX

- Something that I don't event remember"

So I went to get laser treatment, IDK if all laser treatments work the same but basically what this treatment was about is that the guy flashed a laser over my skin, this laser caused the ink to pop up like pop corn hence the scars. The guy told me that in a couple of sessions the tattoo was going to fade away. I watch some videos from his clinic and seemed all okay. I was going for the tenth session (it was one single session per month) and It looked the same. Even worse all the text from the tattoo was popped up like you see in the pictures. I started to think that this guy was just bullshitting me, so I left the skin heal for three, four months and then I went to get the cover. But as you can see in the pictures the damage of the laser treatment is still visible. If I would had got the cover tattoo in the first place instead of the laser treatment it may not be visible at all.

[SStu]

Geez. Sorry to hear all that. That's all new to me so I don't have an opinion regarding if the laser operator screwed up (not that it matters now) or if you've just got skin that reacts badly to trauma. Have you had other significant skin breakage that resulted in similar scarring?

[4gus71n]

6 hours ago, SStu said:

Geez. Sorry to hear all that. That's all new to me so I don't have an opinion regarding if the laser operator screwed up (not that it matters now) or if you've just got skin that reacts badly to trauma. Have you had other significant skin breakage that resulted in similar scarring?

Nono, just this one. I'm going to try with Vitamin E as someone above recommended.