3rd IPL treatment, looks as shaved, is it normal?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
1

Hello, this is my first post. I’ve been reading some threads and people here seem to be so well informed about Laser and IPL that I’ve decided to ask the question that’s been bothering me since my third IPL treatment two weeks ago.

Sixteen days after the third treatment of my legs and armpits with IPL, most of the hair has shed (I’m hairless, on the surface), but I’m not happy because the skin looks as if I had shaved it. After the shedding of the hair, my skin was left with little “holes” (the places where the hairs were) and if you look at the skin in bright light, you can see the roots of the hairs under the skin, just like the skin looks when you shave thick hair.

I’m worried, are my legs going to look forever like this? Will the hairs I see “under the skin” grow or will they be stuck forever there? They don’t seem to grow… When I went to have my 3rd treatment I had little hair and some “holes” from my second treatment, I thought the “holes” were something momentary, but the hair doesn’t seem to grow from them. And the practiotioner didn’t seem to be very convinced of their disappearence when I asked… so I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of them (of the “holes”). If I wanted to look forever like recently shaved, I would shave everyday, I wouldn’t have had these treatments! I would have stuck to waxing… I’d expected my skin to look as if I had just waxed…

So, what do you think? Is this normal? Will my skin look forever like this? Should I continue with this treatment? I would appreciate very much your opinion/advice.

Something I think important to comment: in the place where I go the have the IPL treatment, they don’t ask me to shave before the treatment… I can have the treatment with the hairs being very long (like 2 cm)… so I haven’t shaved since a long time, however…

2

please use the search function and search for “pepperspots”. you can also read about them in the FAQs. these are dead hairs and take longer to fall out. exfoliating helps.

3

Thank you, lagirl, you make me feel a little less worried :).
But I´m still scared because exfoliating doesn´t do much (the roots are too deep in the skin) and I fear my legs are going to look like this forever :eek:, because some parts of my legs look like this since my 2nd treatment (3 months ago) and I haven´t seen any changes in these ¨shaved¨ parts during these months. It makes me feel embarrassed to post this on the internet, but, just to be sure, I took 4 pictures of my legs to show you: are ¨pepperspots¨ supposed to look like this? :frowning:
http://latam.msnusers.com/depilacion/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2

4

yes, they are pepperspots. don’t worry so much about them. they will fall out or will be burned off at your next treatment. I get them too and I scrub using an exfoliating body wash and loofa in the shower, which helps.

p.s. you may be getting better results with a true laser as opposed to an IPL.

5

I’m so sad. My skin still looks the same.
I went to see a dermatologist today. She told me to buy a cream with ammonium lactate, erythromycin and kojic acid. Erythromycin is an antibiotic and kojic acid is for bleaching, I don’t know why she prescribed me that because I don’t have an infection and neither do I want to bleach my skin. Besides the cream is expensive, so I won’t buy it. Perhaps I will see another dermatologist.
I wish I had something nice to say but I’m just sad. I don’t want anybody to see my legs. Perhaps I should be posting in the ‘share your feelings section’…
:frowning:

6

can you post a picture? if the dots are pigmentation, then the cream should help lighten them. otherwise, it’s just gonna take time and can take months to completely go away. maybe you should ask your clinic to pay for the cream. it’s the least they can do, right?

7

Please try to post a picture like you did but one that is in focus. Try to use the close focus feature of your camera or have someone stand back and zoom in to maximum zoom to take the photo. That tends to reduce the problem with depth of field.

Looking at your pictures, I’m not sure that what I am seeing is what I would call pepperspots, which are retained hairs in the follicle. But let’s see a better picture before trying to make an assessment.

8

Thank you very much for your kind interest in my problem. I promise that I will post better pictures of how the skin on my legs and underarms looks as soon as I am able to get hold of a good digital camera and am able to take better pictures. The problem is that I do not know much about photography, but I will try to do it better next time.

I am sorry for taking so much time to reply to your kind posts and to what seems as genuine interest on your part (both lagirl and sslhr) in what causes me so much depression. I also can see that your knowledge in laser hair removal is enormous, so any help any of you could give me would be highly treasured and hold in high regard.

(Surely, I must clarify before going on, that I am the same girl/woman who started this thread (girlfrombsas), I just registered under a different username because sometimes I feel like changing my name. I just hope I am not creating too much confussion by doing this.)

Besides, the reason why I took so much time to reply to you is that I had thought it would be better to wait some time to see how my skin developed with time and with the trying of some creams that some dermatologists had suggested me; so that way I would have something significant to say about how things were developing (At least I had thought that).

Well, to make things short, the situation, that is, the dilatated/open pores (caused by depilation with IPL: Elos) on the skin of my legs and underarms look pretty much the same as they looked some months ago.

I had a treatment at the end of October with GentleLASE by Candela at another clinic, and I must say: what a difference! The skin treated looked immediately softer, the hair shaded instaneously during the treatment… But as great as it was with the few hairs I had left, it couldn’t repair the previous harm done by the ELOS IPL. That means, it could do nothing for my very visible open pores or follicles previously treated by the IPL.

Nonetheless, at the moment, despite my depression (I think that, if not caused, at least coumpounded/aggravated to some degree because of what the ELOS IPL did to my skin: they never mentioned this could be a possible side-effect and besides at the time I began the treatment with ELOS I wasn’t a regular reader of these forums, a fact that I now deeply regret), well, despite my depression, I feel just now a little hope becuase on January the 7th I will be seeing a dermatologist who is (I think) one of the most knowledgeable people on laser hair removal in my country. I probably have no much basis to claim/assure this, except that she is the only person who I know has published a paper on laser hair removal with GentleLASE in my country that you can google on the internet. So perhaps (I hope!) she will know how to solve or at least better my skin problem.

I had been reading about the benefits of rosa mosqueta oil, calendula oil and vitamin E oil to “regenerate” or improve damaged skin. I have no idea if any of that is true or whether any of those oils would help my skin to look better. Perhaps after seeing better pictures of my skin, you could judge if any of these oils could help reduce my pores and improve the aspect of my skin. At the moment, before seeing this dermatologist, I am applying lots of vitamin A on my legs and underarms because I have read vitamin A could help.

Thank you for you patience at reading my long posts.
Thanks again to both of you for taking the time to reply to my questions and fears. I highly appreaciate it because I can see you do it just to help people, without expecting anything in return (except perhaps all the humble gratitude I may be able to express to you)
Thank you very much.