Slartibartfast

*In the interest of full disclosure: I am a stockholder in the company I am about to mention.* starting this month there will be a new technology for tattoo removal. The device is called Resonic and claims to use Rapid acoustic Pulse In conjunction with q switch laser. Doing so enables multiple passes per office visit. From the pictures the company has posted it also appears to be highly effective. this is the latest and greatest in tattoo removal technology and as yet has not been launched commercially so I am eager to see more from this company and how successful the device may be. As a stockholder, of course I hope the company does well for my investment, but hopefully from reading my previous posts you can see that I am rooting for this to work as I believe it’s the best hope of completing my tattoo removal journey. if you are interested in learning more, Google search terms: Soliton, SOLY, Resonic, and RAP (Rapid Acoustic Pulse). rest assured I will be posting before and after pictures when this becomes available within eight hours travel distance from where I live.

Sorry for the flippant response. In all seriousness, in terms of cost, time and discomfort I would say laser is exponentially more than getting a tattoo. for me, I can handle tattoo pain. I have only experienced laser on the neck but I guarantee it is worse than getting the tattoo, which felt more like a burning/stinging/ scraping sensation. Laser is like a rubberband snapping you more than a trillion times a second. A pico second to be exact. The only difference is the session lasts only minutes vs hours for the tattoo.

Quit a bit

Not sure if you have seen my thread on laser removal but I would encourage you to check it out if you feel like getting out of your head on this and maybe feeling better about your new tattoo. just for a taste, I am going to paste a post I made covering the topic of should I shouldn't I. ------- I do feel that most of the time, the second guessing, remorse or panic after immediately getting a tattoo is normal for me at least and not a good judge of how much of a mistake it was/wasn't. It often has more to do with OCD, Anxiety and cognitively distorted thinking like "catastrophizing". The tattoo I am getting lasered wasn’t that bad although I wasn’t happy with the placement which made me decide to go through this process. Even still I was shocked, and continue to battle with this decision, at how much it cost each session and how many sessions I will need to MAYBE remove it. The pain, depending on your pain tolerance and the location, is as bad or worse than people let on. You won't know if complete removal is even possible until you are so many sessions in that it now looks like your drunk friends scribbled something on you while you were passed out... I'm not far enough in to this process to be very positive about it. Four sessions in and I'm not quite half way there. (have since discovered probably about a quarter of the way there) Ultimately, I made the decision because I knew, after two years of having the tattoo, that I was trying to cover it up as often as possible, and I was never going to be happy with it. I also was naive as to the effectiveness of laser removal. I thought I'd be done in a couple sessions, and didn't realize the cost of each laser session would exceed the cost of getting the tattoo. All said and done, if I only need 10 sessions, I will have paid over 10 x's as much to remove, as to get. So the "math" to figure out on this one is, do you hate your tattoo 10 x's as much as it cost and two years worth of painful sessions and unpleasant recovery. .... I am going to add that, if you do hate it 10 x's as much, will you be ok with spending about 5 years of looking a mess where a professionally done tattoo once sat, until you decide, F*** it and just blast over it with something new to agonize over? Cause that is where I am at currently. Finally, your tattoo really looks good. Technically speaking, it checks off all the blocks so I put this down to first tattoo, big tattoo, highly visible (for you) area and mind screw that is ensuing as a result of the things I just mentioned. Give it several months and then see what you think. If you still consider laser after that, check out what I've posted and continue to post on this forum as my journey with laser continues. ~Best of luck

Well, your post got me to REALLY thinking this whole thing through. Unfortunately, I'm at a point where just stopping doesn't work for me. I really wish I would have had better calibrated expectations from the first session. I was led to believe that this would be a done deal at or around 10 sessions, now it sounds like closer to 20 and never complete removal. The office I was going to is no longer doing laser removal, which means I will be looking into other offices. I am really hopeful the RAP device due out this quarter (full disclaimer I am a small stock holder of SOLY 🙂 ) that there will be a clinic within 10 hours drive that I could visit. The results remain to be seen but what few pictures have been published, it looks promising. If it doesn't end up working as well as it seems, I will be spacing out sessions to twice a year and eventually just blasting over it with something that looks better in this spot. This is not my preference for previously mentioned reasons that I would like to go to work without a tie occasionally, but if it is the difference between having a now messed up tattoo in a bad location, or having a more aesthetically pleasing tattoo in this location, I would go for the latter.

It’s coming along but extremely slowly. Not sure I will end up with complete removal so I’m starting to space out appointments. thanks for asking! How many sessions did you do?

Thanks Stu!! I looked it up again and saw one post say as early as THREE WEEKS after the session!!! That sounds WAY too soon to me. I have already paid upfront for my six sessions and have two more left. I’m not terribly optimistic about the final outcome when I compare my results after four, vs what I see online. I understand my tattoo was relatively new (3 or 4 years old) and professionally done, which both make it harder to remove. It is located at a high blood flow location, I don’t drink or smoke and I exercise regularly, all of which made me think this would be further by now. 🤷‍♂️

Hey SStu, thank you for mentioning this. I would like to start spacing sessions out closer to 6 months. I’m curious though how you figure that specific amount of time? Most sites I find say you “can” go in from 6-12 weeks apart but I’ve yet to see the most optimal spacing. id think too it continues to be removed by the body, just slowly, fading for the rest of your life.

I was quoted between $500 and $800 per session but I paid in advance and got a deal for significantly less than that. Ultimately I can say that it costs more than getting the tattoo per session. That is right I am just removing the tattoo on my neck. I am really looking forward to the new Rapid Audio Pulse removal system to be commercially available later in 2020. It looks like complete removal in three office visits. currently I’m probably looking at 10 or more.

I agree with the comments above re placement. I think if it had been too much higher it might bend and distort with flexing. try and take a break from looking at it. Wait until it is completely healed.

Healed session 4 pictures. Feeling a little better about the progress after this fourth session. Still much slower than I would prefer but I feel like there is noticeable progress Btwn the third and fourth.

Thank you for your well wishes. Yes this experience is definitely no joke. I grossly underestimated the process when I went in for my first consultation. At that time I was told it would likely take 10 sessions for a complete removal and I was shocked. every person and every tattoo responds somewhat differently to the process of removal but in my case some factors working against me include that my tattoo was relatively new at only 2 1/2 years

Should I get my tattoo removed? Since posting this series, I occasionally get messages asking if tattoo removal is something I would recommend. I am always happy to respond and help others with this decision by sharing my experience. Rather than retype the same thing again and again, I figured I would post my latest response here in case anyone reading this thread finds themselves grappling with the same question. I do feel that most of the time, the second guessing, remorse or panic after immediately getting a tattoo is normal for me at least and not a good judge of how much of a mistake it was/wasn't. It often has more to do with OCD, Anxiety and cognitively distorted thinking like "catastrophizing". The tattoo I am getting lasered wasn’t that bad although I wasn’t happy with the placement which made me decide to go through this process. Even still I was shocked, and continue to battle with this decision, at how much it cost each session and how many sessions I will need to maybe remove it. The pain, depending on your pain tolerance and the location, is as bad or worse as people let on. You won't know if complete removal is possible until you are so many sessions in that it now looks like your drunk friends scribbled something on you while you were passed out... I'm not far enough in to this process to be very positive about it. Four sessions in and I'm not quite half way there. Ultimately, I made the decision because I knew, after two years of having the tattoo, that I was trying to cover it up as often as possible, and I was never going to be happy with it. I also was naive as to the effectiveness of laser removal. I thought I'd be done in a couple sessions, and didn't realize the cost of each laser session would exceed the cost of getting the tattoo. All said and done, if I only need 10 sessions, I will have paid over 10 x's as much to remove, as to get. So the "math" to figure out on this one is, do you hate your tattoo 10 x's as much as it cost and two years worth of painful sessions and unpleasant recovery. If so, Do it. I will be posting updated "healed" pictures from my latest session as soon as I get a chance. Slarti

I agree with SStu. Just looks like it is healing to me.

Here is a compilation of SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW progress. Starting at pre laser to post 3rd session. Just had 4th last week. Once things are healed I will post a side by side.

I take it you have been there too? For a cover up or complete removal?How many sessions did you take to be finished?

All right, session four down. This time I went in six weeks after the last session. Settings were increased to 3.1, then reduced to 2.8. I actually bled a bit at the session and have quite a few small blisters already. This one seemed to show a lot more progress. I will likely wait 12 or more weeks before the next session. the first images are progress from the third session. the gory ones are four hours after my fourth session.

Bingo! The concept of permanence is possibly playing a larger, if not total, role in your doubt than the tattoo, image, execution, location, experience...etc.

I’d venture to guess that if this is only your second tattoo and first in a visible spot, your feelings of anxiety are completely reasonable and probably not too uncommon. Some of my friends have fun teasing me cause they know I tend to be very harsh and unsure about my tattoos. Compound this with the fact you can see 1,000’s of the best tattoos from the best artists all around the world, refreshing on your instagram feed hourly. AND the fact that you can appreciate all of those without the consequences of getting them and it makes even more sense why one would second guess, go through shock or feel a sense of regret. It’s actually probably a big part of the power and statement of tattoos, a sense of live for today, don’t care about tomorrow, self assured impression whether actual or just imagined. In conclusion, take the advice you’ve received so far and stop looking at it or thinking about it at least until it’s completely healed, settled in, no longer shiny and overly saturated looking. Give yourself permission not to deal with it about it for at least three months before you can make a reasonable, levelheaded decision or opinion about it.

HEY been there and I feel for you. I second what JAC said. Take a break from thinking about it or even looking at it for a while. Once the tattoo has settled and you are more used to it you might be surprised to find you actually like it and what you are experiencing now is just the panic of the concept rather than the art. I say this both as a fairly medium/heavily tattooed guy and also someone who tends to have strong negative reactions to most of the tattoos I get initially. There have been a few I continued to dislike past the normal break in phase. For these, two of them were “fixed” by just adding more around them. I found some of what I didn’t like was the placement or how much the stood out all alone. Also, adding took some of the attention away and then defects didn’t seem so annoying. i have even started laser removal for one of them that I continued to regret. I don’t recommend this method unless you have tons of extra cash, are good with horrible pain and don’t mind taking a couple years to complete the process. I’m an open book on this experience so feel free to shoot me a message with any questions. ultimatley, most of this tends to come down to temperament. I tend to be the type of person who second guesses even what I order for dinner, of course I’m going to have difficulty adjusting to a tattoo. That is until I have enough that each one doesn’t matter as much, which is where I’m at right now. Now I go for the fun of getting one, to add to a spot, and/or to collect from an artist I’m super pumped about. Before I had too much focus on the specific design and nothing was ever perfect enough.

You are welcome. I’m happy to answer any questions related to my experience. I’ve read so much online and there seems to be the set/standard bite sized pieces of information on each blog and site. I’m looking forward to my next session as I feel like very tiny parts of the tattoo, show significant, immediate improvement after each session, then those tiny spots tend to grow, doubling the results in that area before the next session. So the progress in six weeks should be greater than what I initially see. At some point I will photoshop these images together so I can see side by side. Since the tattoo is continuing to make progress after the session, I believe the longer I wait between sessions the greater the impact, but that I don’t know for sure.

I am getting a discounted rate since this is with my primary care physician that I have seen for the past 14 years. I don’t feel right advertising that price but I can say that places seem to charge by the square inch and this is considered a med/large tattoo by laser removal standards. I was quoted $800 per session if I bought five sessions up front from one place. My doctor quoted over five per session but I made a deal to pay in advance for five so he cut the price down for me. In general, I would figure about the cost to double the cost of getting it, per session as that’s what it has worked out for me. Should advancements like the RAP come out and actually work, I would pay considerably more if it could double or triple up results per session.

Yep. Still not sure, 3 sessions in, if I am a candidate for complete removal but if I am, it should be close to 10 sessions total.

Updates about a week after 3rd session. More small blisters this session. Less recovery time and I think more results. Laser settings were increased in intensity this time. I also had a bit of pealing this time which I don’t remember having before. Plenty itchy now but I’m encouraged as I look at the first pictures I posted compared to now. I could get in again as quick as four weeks from now but think t will save me sessions and money waiting longer as the process of ink removal continues, this increasing the contrast for the laser to zap in the next session.

Images show slooooow progress after About 12 weeks post second session. I’ll post update after third.