“It won’t matter. I’m just going swimming.” You’ve recently had a Tatt2Away® treatment and while you may not have uttered your own death sentence like the man in Texas, you’ve indicated your lack of respect for your body, your Tatt2Away technician, the aftercare instructions, and your lack of common sense. Tatt2Away aftercare instructions mandate keeping the scabs dry for optimal healing results.
If you don’t know and haven’t heard, five days after he received a tattoo on his leg, a man went swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Vibrio vulnificus, a deadly bacteria that thrives in warm salt water, entered his body through his new tattoo. Hundreds of tiny needle marks, still healing, provided ample passageways for infection. He was admitted to the hospital, his condition continued to worsen, and two months later, he died. I am quite sure, depending on the quality of the shop he went to, that he received instructions not to do exactly what he did.
You may have a friend who always seems to get sick after swimming in the lake. Not much different. Even less catastrophic bacteria enter through the mucus membranes as easily as they do through open wounds, and some people are more susceptible. The issue isn’t whether you’re one of them, but whether you’re willing to pay the price if you are. And you will.
In discussing Tatt2Away with tattoo shop owners interested in potentially becoming a Tatt2Away center, one of the most frequently asked questions is the client’s potential for post-treatment scarring. And, without exception, every tattoo artist understands when we provide them with the precision of the treatment methodology, adding that we control what we can control, but we can’t control people who don’t listen and don’t follow aftercare procedures. Tattoo artists understand this because they experience it exponentially themselves.
For example, treatment precision includes
- The spacing of the treatment dots through a 4” x 3” template, unique to Tatt2Away and protected by the patent. This template and its spacing is critical because it allows the healthy skin around each dot to contribute to the healing of the treated area. Other non-laser processes do not use a template, often resulting in treatment areas that are too big and too close together………and usually scar, regardless of protocol.
- The solution that brings the ink to the surface of the skin. The solution is all natural and meets vegan approved standards. It mimics a composition found naturally in the human body. There are no chemicals to interfere with or alter the healing outcome. It works with how the body heals wounds – outside and and bottom up – to pull the ink up into a scab that must be kept dry and allowed to flake off naturally. It’s delivered in a pressurized system for consistency, rather than relying on the angle of the technician’s hand or gravity.
But neither we, nor our Tatt2Away centers, can control you. You are your own responsibility.
Beth Nicolaison, Tatt2Away technician at Castle Rock’s Heart in Hand, and wife of shop owner, Jimmy Vegas, impresses upon her clients the importance of their commitment to themselves, the procedure, and results before she’ll allow them in the Tatt2Away chair. After protocols have been discussed, the health questionnaire filled out, and additional education and information provided, she makes them wait until their appointment. No same-day service.
“I want them to weigh the pros and cons and risks and everything we talked about,” said Beth. “I try to really educate people.” She doesn’t want them coming back and asking why it’s infected. Like any wound, proper care is essential to its healing. Beth also said:]
Caring for it afterwards is extremely simple. We want scabs to form, nice crusty scabs, so it can take all that nasty pigment with them and get the tattoo gone. You just have to keep it dry and let those scabs form. But until those scabs form and while the new maturing skin is healing, it’s got to stay out of the sun, and when you’ve got all these little open wounds, you cannot go soak in water, you can’t go swimming, you can’t get in rivers, you can’t get in lake water, you can’t get in pools, and that’s not terribly difficult. It’s just that sometimes people are irresponsible and something you don’t think about – oh, I just went tubing in the lake because my friends did – it’s open wounds. So that’s always my main concern. It’s not time consuming or tricky. It’s basically just leave it alone, but there are a couple things you have to avoid.
If you’re seeing pictures around the internet of scarring Tatt2Away treatments, consider two points
- As of June 2017, more than 7,000 Tatt2Away treatments have been done worldwide. We perform 250 number each month, a number that increases with each new Tatt2Away Center.
- Rather than worry if the procedure caused the scar, realize the greater possibility is that the person who posted the picture didn’t care for it as instructed, which includes not picking the scabs. And then ask yourself, if you get a Tatt2Away treatment, will you follow the instructions? If you can’t, maybe you’re better off living with the tattoo.
Tatt2Away is a specific patented method with a registered trademark. The patent covers multiple unique elements – one is the template – that contribute to its success. If you visit a location claiming to be a certified Tatt2Away center and they fail to use the template in your procedure, leave (and please let us know).