Session 10, Picosure 6: The Sixth Sense

As I climb higher with sessions, it makes movie puns even more difficult / tedious. More annoying is how I got the last one wrong. I can't believe I betrayed Police Academy like that. I had actually planned to have this posted a lot sooner after the session. This one was a slow recovery.

My session was on Feb 10th. I met a new technician in the same clinic. I had not seen her before. They seem to have taken over more of the rooms they're in and now have two separate removal studios. I haven't posted until today as I wanted to show the healing. She went at it pretty hard. It didn't hurt much, I think the last one was more painful but this one seemed more detailed. I always thought the other technician was a bit fast / light. Her style reminded me more of the q-switched sessions I'd had. Not as slow / detailed but she seemed to make absolutely sure she got every single part of it. He would more glaze over it quickly. I do think he got every part of it too, but she made sure she did.

This is the worst recovery from Picosure yet. The blisters are pretty bad and there is some bruising. I have not had bruising with Picosure before. I find some of the photos quite funny. I like how on 12 Feb it looks like it has a beard. The swelling and reddening kind of make it look like a yeti. I wish I had done my wine bottle cooler thing but didn't think I'd need to. I haven't had to on any other Picosure sessions, I think I will on the next. The blisters have been bad, I haven't burst any but I have been worried about it. The pain still isn't too bad but it just looks awful.

9 Feb 2018

This one was taken the day before the session. I guess this shows the maximum fading of all my previous session.

10 Feb 2018

This was before the session. I had shaved my arm here and thought it shows everything a bit clearer. The lighting here is better than the photo from 9 Feb. 

10 Feb 2018

This was less than an hour after the session. Look at how red my skin was. The tattoo is quite raised from my skin and it was sore. Any sensible person would have put something cold on it. I stuck with aloe as Picosure has a very fast healing time and doesn't blister.

11 Feb 2018

 The morning after the night before. Some good blistering here. The hat, the face an mainly the torso. Not only was I in quite a lot of pain, I now had to worry I'd burst the blisters too. I think at this point I regretted not putting it on ice / doing my wine bottle cooler thing.

12 Feb

Still pretty nasty here. Very red and swollen. The blisters are still bad and you can see the bruising forming around the edges.

13 Feb 2018

Yep, still blisters and swollen. A lot of redness, it still has a beard, or at least a fat lip. It lost the fight with the laser. Sadly that means I did too.

14 Feb 2018

Aw, Valentine's day and my arm looks like the Elephant man. The hat and torso still look blistered and swollen. You can see bruising around the arm.

15 Feb 2018

Beginning to show signs of recovery. I think the swelling was almost gone, though not the bruising. Still pretty scabbed and blistered. Lot's of spot bleeding still visible.

17 Feb 2018

This was one week later! We're getting back to normal now. Bruising has mostly subsided, still a lot of scabs. Hard to see but my skin underneath was still quite red. The tattoo still has a bit of a swollen lip.

18 Feb 2018

Beginning to look normal now. You can see my skin still looks wrong. I think I had started to put e45 on it at this stage. That wasn't a recommended ointment (by this clinic) but I knew it would soften the skin. It still looks wrong though, you can see the redness in the clearer parts of the tattoo.

20 Feb 2018

At this stage we're starting to look normal. I stopped taking daily photos because no one, neither you nor me, cares anymore. I was close to accepting that I'd be doing this for the rest of my life otherwise.

22 Feb 2018

Why Paul, what beautiful dried-out skin you I have. I see most of your blisters are gone but it still looks awful. Your tattoo looks bad and you should feel bad.

24 Feb 2018

Two weeks later, still not fully healed. No longer any pain, swelling, blisters or redness but you can see my skin doesn't look right. 

I'm typing this on 25 Feb, 2018 and it's still not 100%. I don't think this will scar, it's just a slow healer. I would say that by 3rd March it will be back to normal. Then the waiting game commences.

That's the longest healing time from Picosure yet. But I'm hopeful it will also make it a significant session. The fact she paid so much attention to every spot gives me a little hope. That was my final session of my paid in advance ones. She estimated I'd need 2, maybe 3 more. She thought it was fading well. I thought it would be gone by now but is not. Next session is April, if it needs 3 more It'll be October.  I said I don't want it to have a 16th birthday but it now seems plausible.