Untattoo You : That Mark of the Past Can Be Erased, but It’s Not Easy or Cheap

Plastic surgeons have seen an increase in the number of people seeking tattoo removal these days, and they predict members of a new generation will be filling their waiting rooms a decade from now.

The reasons for tattoo removal? Some people think their professional images are at risk, and others simply grow tired of the permanent art form they see on their skin every day.

For whatever reason, many tattoo-wearers are finding themselves under the knife--or laser beam--to remove that colorful part of their past.

Take Gilbert Gonzales of Moreno Valley, for instance.

With a great job, a comfortable home and loving family, everything about him was beginning to fit the image he had worked so hard to achieve.

Except for one thing.

Somehow, the four-inch “LOVE” on his left forearm didn’t meld with his current role as husband, father and Northrop Corp. employee.

There was only one thing to do: go to a surgeon and remove that unwanted slice of his life.

“I never did like it,” said Gonzales, 38, who is a structure mechanic. “It was something I did on impulse. I was 16 years old and someone dared me to do it, so I did it. Every time I got into the shower, I had to see it. There’s some exquisite art in tattoos, but this was real crude.”

Now the tattoo is gone, removed by Dr. Michael Niccole, medical director of CosmetiCare Plastic Surgery Specialists in Santa Ana. It was done by excision, in which the skin of the tattoo area is cut and the skin around it sewn together.

“Whatever scar there is, you can’t see it,” said Gonzales’ wife, Patty.

Although surgical removal is often the method used to erase smaller tattoos, that procedure becomes more difficult and more expensive when the tattoo is large, said Dr. Bruce Achauer, associate professor of plastic surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

For bigger, decorative tattoos, Achauer recommends laser therapy.

Regardless of the size, however, it may take several such treatments--at hundreds of dollars per visit--to get rid of something once valued.

“It doesn’t matter how big the tattoo is, it can take one, two, six, eight or 12 treatments to get results,” Achauer said.

The newest tool on the plastic surgery scene is called the Q-switched Ruby Laser, according to Joyce Zeiler of the Beckman Laser Institute in Irvine.

The laser directs its beam of light for a short period of time during the tattoo removal procedure, then is absorbed by the pigment of the tattoo until the tattoo pops and breaks into smaller pieces that the skin absorbs, she said.

There is minimal scarring with this new laser because it doesn’t damage the surface skin layers, Zeiler said. There is, however, some stinging and swelling involved.

Danny Pinn, 24, of Long Beach has chosen to simply cover up his mistake.

For the most part, he says, he loves tattoos. In fact, Pinn, an artist, considers six of his seven tattoos artistic expressions of his personality.

“They’re additions to my body. They catch the corner of my eye when I look, and I like what I see,” he said.

But the swastika on his forearm is an emotionally painful legacy of “an old drunken story,” he said.

“I look back at it, and it was the shock value more than anything to people around me at the time.”

His parents, who are Jewish, gave him money to have the offensive symbol surgically removed, but Pinn, who designs tattoos, hopes he will be able to hide the tattoo by adding another pattern to it.

Achauer advises anyone to think before turning his or her skin over to a tattoo artist.

“It’s permanent. They never go away,” he warns. “Imagine you’re 10, 20 or 30 years away, a responsible grandparent. People just don’t think.”

The recent tattoo trend led by actress Cher and rock star Axl Rose forecasts another wave of people looking to take off their inked emblems when they find themselves 10 years older and in a different stage of life, Niccole said.

“You get a figure like Cher, for instance, with tattoos everywhere,” he said. “People go out and get them, and, unfortunately, they don’t think and they’re ashamed later.”

He warns: “They’re a lot easier to get than they are to take off.”

Getting Rid of That Tattoo

Removing tattoos, pigments injected beneath the skin, is not nearly as easy or as inexpensive as putting them there. There is, however, more than one way to do the job. It depends on the size, type and location of the tattoo.

Laser Treatment

* The method: Tattoo is blasted by thousands of red laser pulses. Due to the quick pulsations of the beam, the skin does not burn. Instead, blobs of pigment absorb the heat. They explode into thousands of smaller fragments, which the body’s immune system dilutes and disburses.

* Pros and cons: Costly; can take several months to complete causes little or no scarring.

Excision

* The method: Tattoo is cut out of the skin. The outer skin is then sewn together. Large tattoos are generally removed in two or three surgeries, allowing the skin to heal before the next portion is cut away.

* Pros and cons: Good for small tattoos; scarring possible for larger tattoos.

Source: UCI Beckman Institute, CosmetiCare Plastic Surgery Specialists

Researched by April Jackson / Los Angeles Times