On Friday I did the first of many treatments necessary to remove my tattoos.  This is something that I've been interested in doing for 6-7 years, but have always been put off by the amount of money it's going to require and the lack of professionals in the area that offer this service.  Pictures can be found here.

This process is going to take 18-24 months to remove all of the tattoos as long as I continue to have treatments roughly every 6 weeks.  I'm currently seeing a professional in Indy.  I chose this office because of their accolades in this field as well as personal references.

One thing is for sure, the procedure hurt so much worse than I was expecting.  I had read a lot online about how it just feels like you're getting snapped on the skin with a rubberband, but this was nothing like that.  They must have been working with a different kind of laser, or simply just high on crack!  It felt similar to getting the tattoo put on, but instead with a 5mm wide needle.  They said that it's fairly common for patients to pass out during the treatment.  They also said that I wouldn't be able handle getting all 3 tattoos treated in one session, but I did.  However, I did have to ask them to take a couple of break when doing the last one.
For the next 3 hours, it felt as though my arm had been sandblasted.  If they could reproduce the same results from the procedure by kicking me in the bag instead of zapping my skin with a laser, I would have to take it into consideration.

I'm certainly not looking forward to dealing with the pain for the remaining sessions, but luckily it only takes 5-10 mintes.  I am looking forward to the final result of no longer having these tattoos!  If only I knew 11 years ago what I know now.