CHENNAI: Right from from Kollywood cinemas to TV serials, inking your beloved’s name under the skin is shown as one of the first things to do when you are in a relationship. But what the doctors in the city are seeing increasingly is the painful side of it.
The doctors at Stanley Government Hospital say every week they see at least 10 youngsters who saunter in to remove the tattoo of the names of their ‘ex’. In most cases, the youngsters come just months ahead of the wedding, obviously not with the person they once were in a deep relationship which moved them to ink the names through the skin.
“I recently had a case of young girl who wanted to remove the name of her ex-partner which she had tattooed on her thigh and were in a relationship for six years. She says she tattooed his name just six months into the relationship just to surprise him,” says Dr GR Ratnavel, professor and head of the department cosmetology, Stanley Medical College and Hospital.
But her lover married another woman and this girl had to go through prolonged laser treatment that took months to remove the tattoo.
“Initially, patients used to approach us to remove the tattoos because of family pressure or for job. But these days patients who inked the name of their loved ones on their hands, neck or thigh come to us for removal when they are set to marry another person,” the doctor says.
Explaining the procedure which is offered free of cost in the government hospital, he says, “‘Q switched Nd YAG laser equipment has a dot of red light shooting out of its pen-like tip and hovers over the patient’s skin that is tattooed.”
The procedure takes at least six sittings with a three-week interval to remove the tattoo completely. The doctor says that there is no cream or ointment to remove a tattoo. The only option is surgery.
The number of laser shots required to delete a tattoo depends on its depth, the ink used, skin type and the area occupied by the tattoo. If the tattoo ink has entered only in the first layer (epidermis ), the tattoo can be removed easily, but if it enters the second layer (dermis), the ink can be removed but there will be a slight difference in the skin complexion.
Meanwhile, tattoo shop owners claim that they get a written consent from their customers before etching a tattoo.
But there are a few smart ones. “A girl had tattooed ‘J’, the initial of her lover. But recently came asking to redesign the letter into ‘R’, which is the initial of the man she is going to marry,” says a city-based tattoo centre owner.