A woman left in agony after a botched tattoo removal on her foot was unable to wear shoes for several months.
Anya Koursarys, 33, arranged to have a six-inch peacock feather on her right foot removed and paid £120 at a laser clinic. However when she returned home and took off the bandage she found ugly pus-filled blisters on the swollen foot which made it look “deformed”. Anya says the clinic told her blistering ‘could happen’ after the treatment and recommended she treat the burns at home using antiseptic cream – but it took several weeks for it to heal completely.
Anya, from Glasgow, Scotland, said: “It was instantly blistering. I was completely shocked, really worried. I’d never seen anything like that. My foot looked deformed.
“There was just not a single part of where the tattoo was that wasn’t a blister. I had already had about three sessions prior to that at different clinics over the past five years before and I’d never had any reactions like that.
“So I knew it wasn’t me and it wasn’t a bad reaction or an adverse reaction I was experiencing. I messaged them a few days later and they just obviously played it down saying that ‘sometimes blisters can happen’.
“I knew something wasn’t right because about a week later I still had blisters, it was still agony. I couldn’t put my foot in my shoe because it was so swollen, it wouldn’t fit in anything.
“If I was sleeping at night and I was lying flat, I would get up out of bed and the blood would rush back to my foot. I had to actually physically hold on to the wall because I thought I was going to pass out from pain.
“I think I got quite severe nerve damage from it with how painful it was.”
It took around 12 weeks for Anya’s foot to recover fully, with the largest blister on her ankle measuring 2.5 inches wide. Inspired by her own horror experience, she trained as a laser technician and now owns her own clinic in Glasgow called Laser Reverse.
She is now urging people looking for tattoo removal to go to reputable places for treatment, to avoid the same thing happening to them.
Anya said: “It’s my only tattoo, I got it done when I was 18, so a long time ago. It’s not me anymore so I wanted to get it removed.
“It really was excruciating. I’m really fit and I’m at the gym a lot and I’m an active person and I couldn’t do anything like that for probably about a month afterwards at least.
“I think they must have known that it was much more severe than they were making out. It was definitely frustrating.”
After undergoing training, Anya took matters into her own hands and lasered her own tattoo in a bid to banish the inking for good. She said: “At that time I was thinking about learning about tattoo removal and offering that as a treatment.
“After I had that reaction it really spurred me on to open my own clinic which is what I’ve done now after more advanced training so that wouldn’t happen to anyone else.”
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