Alright you guys, it’s been nearly 2 weeks since the treatment and I finally got my s*it together, uploaded pics and am making an overdue update!
The machine used was GentleLase Pro-U (uses alex wavelength). The practitioner was a dermatologist. The day was June 30, 2023. Reminder - I have type 2 skin with dark hair and no tan whatsoever. We treated one entire thigh. I don’t even remember the last time I lasered that area, but it’s certainly been over a year.
Question: red arrow (3ms) is the pulse width, right? There were other numbers measured in ms (blue and green arrows) so that confused me. Blue arrow has a snowflake so I assumed that must be cooling related. I asked her if the pulse width we’re using is 3ms (red arrow) and she genuinely seemed to not know what that setting even meant? She just kept repeating oh I don’t know we just never change that setting ever. I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to expect a treating DERMATOLOGIST to know everything about the settings?!
machine used, probably redundant photo but what the hell.
When we were about to start, I checked the settings. She was about to use 18mm spot on me with 16J. I asked if she could turn it up to 18J or even 20J expecting resistance but, thank heavens, she was just like alright! But if you get a burn it’s on you. I was like hell yeah lady let’s do this. She said that normally they just enter your skin type and hair color and use the automatic settings. That doesn’t sound great, right? 
Luckily, from my reading on here (can’t thank you all enough) 3ms seemed like a great pulse width (correct me if I’m wrong) and so she started zapping away. It hurt very bad on the thick hairs but cooling helped.
To sum up, in the end we used the following settings: 20J (18J for very dark thick bikini line hairs), 3ms pulse I hope, and 18mm spot.
Right after the treatment, follicular edema set in! It looked as if my skin was bubbling underneath. She said it looked like a great reaction.
It’s been a long time now since I got undertreated with the Soprano ICE and back then I had no idea what to look out for, so I don’t really remember if I had follicular edema or erythema after but I’m inclined to believe I didn’t… I just remember that it hurt like hell on the thickest hairs.
2h after, redness is in! I believe the edema was still there too, it just didn’t want to be photographed.
5h after, here you can see quite the intense redness and edema.
14h after, still swollen
42h after, still red.
And that’s that, everybody! About ten or so days later they started shedding beautifully. Many of the closely shaved hairs didn’t seem to be growing any longer and when I teased them out with tweezers they just fell off. Now I guess I won’t have anything to report for a long time until the majority grows back.
