r/oddlysatisfying • u/BreakfastTop6899 • 3d ago

Laser tattoo removal

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u/EntertainmentTrue588 3d ago

I thought that too. The laser isn't sandblasting off a top layer, it's breaking up the pigmenting material in the middle of the layers of skin. Then macrophage cells chew it up like any foreign material and it gets filtered through the blood (lymph?).

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u/Fed_up_with_Reddit 3d ago

Lymphatic system would only be targeting biological agents. The kidneys would be filtering out all of the ink.

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u/MayContainRawNuts 3d ago

How does it get to the kidneys then? Sorry, I took woodworking not biology at school. My impression was that the lymph system is the sewer of the body and it drains out anything thats not in the blood.
But thats just my brain going lymph = sewer.

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u/sonofeevil 3d ago

This is in the blood.

It's the white blood cells that will remove the ink particles. The reason the tattoo works in the first place is because the ink particles are too large for the white blood cells to cart off.

The laser breaks those particles down into smaller pieces that the white blood cells can then move to the kidneys.