I am male, white skin with dark hair. there is a lot of hair on my back, chest and abdomen. Yesterday I had my first laser hair removal treatment on my back. the doctor asked me if i wanted to use anesthetic but i told her that i didn’t need anesthetic. actually i have read it in this forum that anesthetic can not be used on large areas. I just can say that yesterday, the hair removal session was like living in hell for an hour. it was so painful. do you think that the next time i should tell her to use anesthetic?
I have another question. Do you think that it’s wise that i start to have treatments on my chest and abdomen or should i wait to see if the treatments work on my back?
I think there have been some bad reports on numbing cream…
Im not sure if local anesthetic would be possible… I thought the exact same thing the other day actually, when i got my chest done lol.
I dont think doing your back frist would prove anything really. The back is known to be harder to treat than the chest/abs, so you might not get a fair indication of what will happen.
If your light skin, dark hair and using a Gentlelase - you should see some good results on your front.
Did you take a pain reliever beforehand? I think a couple tylenols about 30 mins before helps a little.
I use the numbing cream, but only on my bikini area. I know there have been a few cases where people had bad reactions (and died), but for me it works great – again I’m only using it on a small area.
Funny – I just googled it and found this http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2005/05/16/story5.html
The article quotes Ideal Image, and they say you receive a full sheet of instruction before you get the cream. I go to Ideal Image, I didn’t get any sheet of instructions. I was told I could only apply it to one of my treated areas, either my underarms or my bikini area. BUT I wasn’t given anything in writing.
My pharmacist didn’t know anything about the numbing cream and was a little concerned that the prescription didn’t come with instructions. I told him what I was told, and he said that was fine, just to follow my Drs instructions.
– oh, about doing your chest and back at the same time. I think it is easier to get everything done at once. It’s a long process and a lot of time you have to be very careful to stay out of the sun. So, I think its best to get it over with as soon as possible.
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If you really can’t handle it, you can consider an anesthetic, though you are right, it’s not recommended on large areas. you might want to use it only on a few spots that hurt the most. also, do consider icing before and after. it helps a lot for most people, and that way you might not even need an anesthetic. and avoid caffeine the day or treatment and drink a lot of water.
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i would wait and see how the results are on your back, not only to see how your hair reacts but also to make sure that this clinic has the expertise to get you results. you didn’t mention what laser and settings you’re using btw.
I have also heard that over the counter pain killers could be helpful. I haven’t tried them myself so I’m not sure how safe or effective they are for this sort of pain. It might be worth asking your treatment center if they recommend it.
It’s gentlelase but i don’t know the settings.I live in Shanghai and my doctor’s English is even worse than my Chinese. I’ll try to ask her. the hair is gone from my back but in some places there are many dots as if it has been shaved. does it mean that she has missed these spots? in shanghai it’s very cheap, just 650$ for 4 treatments and 40$ for each treatment after that. by the way how can i upload my pictures?
this is a good machine and the “dots” are called pepperspots. they’re dead hairs and normal.
you can upload pictures with www.photobucket.com and post the HTML links they provide right in your post.
yes, that’s a very cheap price!
Definitely try pain relievers beforehand.
I didn’t feel any pain at my first treatment, in fact it was so painless that everyone was concerned that the treatment wasn’t strong enough.
My second treatment was unbelievably painful. Granted the settings may have gone up a little, but this pain was almost unbearable. I realized I had taken two pain relievers before the first treatment and not for the second. Will never make that mistake again.
Hi
I had my first treatment about 15 weeks ago. It took my hair 2 months to start growing and after that I waited for another month for my second treatment(about 10 days ago). The results were pretty good on my back, so I decided to remove the hair from my hands, chest and abdomen too. This time I used numbing cream for most of the places and luckily didn’t die! It was very very good!!! I didn’t feel pain at all. the problem is that about 5 weeks ago when my hair was growing a lot of pimples appeared on my skin. My doctor told me that they are not important and did the second treatment anyway. After the second treatment the pimples didn’t get any worse and are healing slowly. Here is a picture that I took today. Please tell me if they are normal or not. photobucket
Are all these blemishes new, related to the last laser treatment or do you have acne as well?
It sounds like you had some ingrown hairs happening. The doctor knows that laser can proceed in this situation, so that’s why he told you not to worry.
Is there anyone that can exfoliate your back a couple times a weeks?
it looks like ingrown hairs and possibly pigmentation. if that is all after laser and you didn’t have it before, that’s not normal. what machine are they using? what settings?
ok,now I’m a little bit worried! no, I didn’t have them before. They use gentlelase and I can remember somthing like 755nm on the machine but I don’t know the settings. Is my skin going to look like this forever? Is it because of my skin type?
you may be too dark for GentleLASE and could be getting pigmentation because of it. it will resolve, but it will take a little while. i wouldn’t continue treating with same machine and settings if you keep seeing this. Using a Yag laser like GentleYAG may be better for you. 755nm is for all alex lasers. you need joules and spot size.
Conbio has the 1064nm Coolglide Xeo YAG that you can switch to 
What is the difference between these machines?
Please read the FAQs below which explains this. You won’t be getting pigmentation issues or possible burns with the Yag (like Coolglide) which is meant for darker skin. What you are using now is meant for light skin so it’s too powerful for you and that’s why you’re getting a reaction, which doesn’t have to happen with the right machine.
thak you for your answers i think next time i should discuss it with my doctor but i still have one more question:as far as i have seen all who have had great results have used gentlelase and for the first treatment i had a very good hair reduction(of course plus the blemishes!) . based on what you have seen is it possible to get great results with the 1064nm Coolglide Xeo YAG too?
Coolglide is a good Yag laser. There is no one laser that’s good for everyone. You need a laser that’s best for YOUR skin and hair type, which in your case is a Yag laser such as Coolglide which will kill coarse hair and not affect your skin.
it has been about 3 months from my last treatment. in this new photo you can see half of my shoulder which has been treated twice and the other half which has been treated once. so, what do you think? is the result as satisfactory as it seems? shoulder
