1st treatment 2 wks ago having blotchy regrowth

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

I had my 1st laser treatment (full chest/abs, shoulders, full back) 2 weeks ago yesterday. It wasn’t painful at all, I was worried about that because sometimes I don’t have the highest pain tolerance, but it wasn’t bad at all. The operator said she was using a moderate setting and that next time they’ll “crank it up” a ways for me, but also that other guys couldn’t handle even the setting we were at. So, we’ll see how it goes next time at a higher setting, but I think I could easily handle quite a bit more.

I’d read on here and other places about shedding starting around the 2 to 3 weeks after treatment point, I haven’t noticed any shedding yet, but what I am noticing is that the regrowth is very blotchy. Just looking at my chest and abs, there are areas where the hair is growing back fairly normally and then other areas where its hardly growing back yet at all, its sort of a blotchy look, like areas maybe an inch wide, inch high where there’s hardly anything yet and then other areas right next to the empty area where the hair seems to be coming back normally. I know in the past when I’d shaved or been waxed, it all seemed to come back in pretty much evenly. I’ve never read anything about something like this before so I’m wondering if this is normal???

#2

More than likely those are spots missed by the laser technician. Additionally, if it’s not that painful, chances are the settings are too weak for you to be getting permanent results. Most places that say they will “crank it up” later actually won’t that much. They should be starting with high settings to begin with.

#3

So, I take it you’re saying that the spots with the regrowth are the spots they missed and the spots without much regrowth are the spots they “hit”, right?

#4

That is what I’m saying, yes. It’s ok to have a little regrowth here and there not long after treatment (ideally <10% of the hair you had before) because hair that was under the skin that couldn’t be hit is now emerging, but when you have streaks of hair and patterns like that, it was missed

#5

Hmmmmm, well that makes me wonder about something else then. It took her less than an hour, actually about 40-45 minutes to cover my whole chest/abs, full back, shoulders and upper arms. I guess I had no idea how long it should’ve taken but I was a little surprised at how quickly it went, since I know they had booked me for a 90 minutes of time in their schedule. Does that sound like a short amount of time to cover that much area?

And would a pic of my chest/abs help?

#6

Oh, indeed. Pictures are always useful.

#7

Here’s a pic of my abs/chest area, its harder to take these than I thought, but hopefully it will help! Normally, it would all grow in pretty evenly, hopefully you can see how blotchy it is.

qwerty Attachments

2013-07-21_17-31-12_202.jpg

#8

That’s pretty patchy and it looks to be like you got a pretty poor treatment. That, coupled with the fact that it didn’t hurt that much, suggests that you’re getting, for a lack of a better phrase, screwed. The good news is that since the settings were probably weak (the chest is a pretty sensitive area so it should hurt a lot), a lot of hair was most likely not killed so it should eventually fill back in.

If it was me, I’d find another place.

#9

This isn’t ‘regrowth’. These are the hairs you shaved before treatment. Normally, these should shed like the hairs in the clear areas obviously have. These areas were missed by the technician (the fact they are in lines confirms this) and therefore the hair in these areas has continued growing instead.

The technician does need to be careful and thorough to avoid this. Generally, a small amount of overlapping should occur so that no areas are missed. A good clinic will use a pencil (that the Laser can’t ‘see’) to mark out a grid over the area. The area is then treated one box at a time, making sure the shots within the box are slightly overlapped.

#10

Hmmm, thanks for the advice and I’m certainly open to hearing what everyone else thinks. Unfortunately, I paid upfront for 6 treatments, they were running a great “sale” on treatments and I got the whole package for about $1200, actually I think a little under 1200. Anyway, I WAS all excited about it because not only did I get that price, but they also use the type of laser that was one of the ones best recommended for my skin/hair combo (I tan pretty easily, don’t burn easily, black hair) Its a real letdown to have these results to say the least, I figured that something must be wrong and your opinions seem to confirm it!

Right now my plan is to gather up all of your comments and send them to the MD who owns/runs the place. (or just email her a link to this thread!) She’s not the person who did the treatment, so hopefully we can get things worked out where this doesn’t happen again! I like the idea of using the pencil, that makes a lot of sense.

I’d still appreciate to hear anyone else’s opinions here, it will help my case on this, I’d hate to have wasted $1200 PLUS my time and annoyance! Thanks!

#11

I sent an email to the MD who runs the place and she called me not long after I’d sent it and said they would give me another treatment free and that she would make sure she’s there for my next appointment to make sure things go correctly. She mentioned that they used a setting of 1650 (jules?) I have to say that I’m impressed that she got back to me right away and the clinic was very professional otherwise, so we’ll see how it goes and I’ll be sure to update after my next appointment.

#12

1650 joules would blast a hole through your body lol. When you go, make sure you get the name of the machine, joules, spot size, and pulse width. You can look at the machine afterwards and jot down the values or simply ask them. I’m glad they’ll give you a free treatment. Hopefully it will be at good settings.

#13

I had a similar experience when I started Laser HRT ie. no results ad no discomfort. I did some digging and assembled a package of medical journal papers. I sat down with one of the MD partners and went through a couple of the papers and then left the rest for her to review. The result is that they have changed many of their practices and given their techs some additional training.

Specifically they are running patch tests on all new patients (and some still in early stages of treatment. As for myself, after testing I started receiving treatments using 3 times what they were doing in the beginning up from 14 j up to 42 j. The treatments hurt, but only while they are taking place, and I am getting results. I still have not convinced them to lengthen the treatment interval, but I’m working on it.

I live in Mexico an here MDs are far more approachable than in the US. Still I think you have nothing to loose and a lot to gain by getting your ducks in line and giving it a go.

Best of luck.