Hi Everyone,
I’m a trans woman having electrolysis on my upper lip and chin, for the past ~8 months after a good few rounds of laser to thin out the hair beforehand, with sessions every 2 weeks (mostly alternating between chin and upper lip focus on a given session but zapping a few in all the areas each time). My facial hair has always grown in relatively thick and coarse on my upper lip compared to the rest of my face and responded the least to the laser, so I was expecting it to take a while (12-18 months at least was the given estimate by my electrologist) and maybe have a few temporary side effects.
I have some hyperpigmentation on my upper lip and my chin (mostly concentrated around the areas where the hair grew thickest) which I’m not particularly worried about as I’ve heard it’s fairly common and it can currently be covered with concealer/foundation. However, as the treatment has progressed I’ve also noticed that the treated area of my upper lip has become dotted with subtly raised, almost spot-like (but without the head) bumps. While it started off almost unnoticeable and in a very small area (At first i thought it was the hyperpigmentation showing through concealer when i could see them) they are now pretty uniform over all the treated area, and seem to have created a kind of ridge of raised, bumpy skin on the upper lip. They’re generally not particularly noticeable - however, from certain angles/ under harsh angled lighting they can be seen and cast a shadow that looks like a moustache, showing through any makeup I apply - exactly the problem i was trying to avoid by getting electrolysis!
I’ve talked to my (board certified) electrologist who did not seem particularly concerned and said it would most likely smooth out once the treatment was completed and the skin had plenty of time to heal, but I was also fairly aware of the typical potential side effects/complications and hadn’t seen anything about this which worried me a little. I’ve since looked all over the internet (and this forum!) for information about this and there just doesn’t seem to be much - I’ve seen a few posts about people with seemingly similar problems but these are usually very old/without photos/unresolved as of the moment.
What worried me the most was seeing some information about the side effect of “pebbling”, which from what I understand is permanent and if this is the case I’ll effectively have a permanent, unhide-able moustache shadow (obviously far from ideal). From what I’ve seen the chances of this being the case are extremely unlikely on the upper lip and my bumps don’t quite look like the mounds of scar tissue of pebbling, but knowing this hasn’t done much to soothe my worries, so I’d like to get some more opinions on what this could be.
Here are some photos I’ve tried to take of the bumps - Apologies if they aren’t the best but I’ve found it really difficult to take pictures from angles that actually show them, but hopefully it gets the point across. I can try and take some more if these aren’t sufficient to help with anything.
Lumpy pics
Is anyone able to help me with this? I’m at my wits end trying to figure out what’s going on and if it will be permanent or not so I can plan what I need to do about it in the future.