I wanted to share my bad experience with you. I wish I had never done electrolysis in my life!
I started to do it on my legs 4 years ago. During first three years I had some winegrowing hairs, but I hope that in the future they would be less and less. What happened in particular- nine months i had very awful looking legs, always in sores from ingrown hairs, and in to summer I managed to heal these sores a little, but they left just awful ugly violet scars! So, after three years I stooped to doing it. And I hadn’t been doing it for one and a half years already. But I STILL have a lot of ingrown hairs! I do believe that it is because of insertion a needle. I think that it ruins not only hair INSIDE, but the SKIN DEEP inside too! And the situation even worse on my upper leg! Yes, some hairs are really gone forever, but hairs which did not ruined my legs! I think that the skin is so damaged that these sores from ingrown hairs did not heal for several months! I have never did ipl or laser hair removal. But I do wish that some people would read what electrolysis can so with their skin! Beware!!!
Do you have any photographs? This is an interesting story, and I’m not familiar with how something like this could happen. But there are many experienced people here who could take a look and perhaps figure out what the problem was. Ideally, the hairs are killed and removed, so they should not be growing back at all (and certainly not as ingrown hairs). Any growth should be of different hairs that have not been affected by electrolysis yet (so those ingrowns are natural ones, not caused by electrolysis).
A few hairs might not be killed, but the goal is to kill them all the first time so you shouldn’t see much “regrowth”.
Did you ever feel plucking during the treatment at all? Because that seems like the main way something like this could happen.
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience. 
Rather than suspect the electrolysis, if anything it’s the practitioner. My newest practitioner is about 3x more gentle than my prior one, and my skin looks it.
Bryce, where do you live again? I could have sworn you used a laser clinic in LA once, so does that mean you live near there still? I’m just wondering because I am interested in all the local electrologists…
Just today on one site I found the reason of my ingrown hairs because of electrolysis! It is said, “while killing the follicle by electric current, it is impossible to prevent a burn of nearest tissue. As a result under on a sport of coming out a hair there is a scarring. And a hair cannot break the skin, and grow inside.”
Also, on another site I read that the reason is because hairs are becoming thinner every time, and skin is thicker. This is a reason as well. That’s exactly what happened to me. I wonder where are the same problems with ipl and laser hair removal? Because if I have a daughter in the future, I will never allow her to do electrolysis.
Yeah that would make sense if electrolysis made all the hairs thinner. But that only happens for very difficult hairs, from what I was told. For most hairs (if they are treated properly), they just die. The hairs that come back thinner each time and take several treatments to kill are very rare aren’t they? Usually that is just a story that electrologists tell clients to avoid explaining regrowth cycles.
So maybe this lady is undertreating you? If she did a good job of killing the hairs the first time (like my lady does) then you would not have more ingrowns, possibly. Or maybe you are one of the rare people who have resilient follicles…
Did you complain to your electrologist about your bad reaction? What was her response?
Maybe I am just such a person… Though, I read a story of one girl who did elos (ipl+rf) on her arms, and then start doing electrolysis. And she had the same bad results on her hands! Also, she changed several salons because at first, she thought that it was a problem in a master!
So, I do think that electrolysis has more side-effects then other methods. The more hairs you have, the more chances of ingrown hairs you have! Also, maybe it depends on area. On upper legs when the skin is different, I have 90% of ingrowns! I did not have these much from the simple epilator! Ugh!
I just interested to know, whether such problem of ingrown exist with LHA or IPL?
I never had those problems with laser or electrolysis (and I am doing very large areas). I don’t think I’ve had a single ingrown hair since I started. I think some guy here was getting bad pimples on his face or something from electrolysis, but that’s the closest I’ve heard to this. I can’t be of much help, other than to tell you that this problem isn’t that common, so don’t lose heart yet. Maybe you will respond better to a new electrologist or modality or treatment energy.
I wish James or Dee were here weigh in.
Honestly, legs are probably the EASIEST thing to do. First day electrolysis students are allowed to work on paying customer’s legs at many schools. There are very few possibilities for what happened here. One possibility is that the people working on her legs were so ill trained that they did both poor insertions, AND used too much treatment energy. In that case, they would be cutting off the hairs, while closing off the follicle above the burned off hair shaft. Of course, if this happened, the client would have smelled lots of burning hair, and would have seen no bulbs on any of the hairs removed (assuming one had bothered to look at what was being done. The pain of what I described would have a person wincing, gnashing their teeth, and more, so one may not have been watching.
Another possibility is undertreatment, causing breakage of the hair under the skin, leaving hairs to grow like a river under the skin. This result can also happen if nearby hairs get spillover treatment, and are damaged, but not killed when they have yet to grow above the skin’s surface.
Another possibility is the person was prone to ingrowns, and the electrolysis had nothing to do with it.
In any event, a good electrolysis practitioner with great vision equipment, who knows how to do a perfect treatment setting would make short work of those legs, and all that would be left would be hair-free, carefree skin. I have done 3 hour treatments on legs and had nothing resembling this occur.
About 15 years ago, a client came to see me because she relocated to Sydney, and was 6 months into having her bikiniline treated. About 80% of her hair was ingrown, and her skin extremely traumatized.
From that day onwards,she never had another ingrowing hair. As James described in the previous post, the previous operater obviously had a very poor treatment technique. If you have had all of your treatment with one electrologist, there is no way of knowing if it is your skin, or poor technique. Personally, I have never seen a case like this again.
Electrolysis is the cure for ingrowns whether it be nature or human caused. To prevent ingrown hairs from happening, those insertions have to be deep enough and the energy and timing have to be strong enough to affect the area that grows hair. Timid electrolysis care is almost as bad as too aggressive electrolysis care. Like everything else, balance is needed to avoid ingrowns as it may relate to electrolysis.
Dee
This photo was taken before starting the electrolysis in my salon. This customer claimed to have been undergoing several months of electrolysis in another salon. What really made him was his former electrologist tore out the hairs with the tweezers. All his hairs were stuck in the skin causing infection in the epidermis. Lucky for her, the client changed practitioners.
Depil, you provide great photographs. I am sure that after treatment, her skin was beautiful once more. She was extremely fortunate to change practitioner.
Depilacionelectr, the two pictures above (the two that are side-by-side: left and right), after how many clearances did you take the picture on the left? Thank you.
For this young woman (17 years old), I used a strategy to maintain and advance. If you look closely at the picture you can see that the area where the hairs are thicker, the appearance of success is much greater. The reason is simple. In this area all the follicles were treated in the first clearance because all follicles had developed hair terminal (thick). In the rest of the area had an abundance of fine hair so the choice left to see the fine hairs that were not treated.
When the density of hairs that exists in the area, coincides with the density treated with electrolysis, the results are quite spectacular, and the need to return to that area is almost unnecessary. Most of the hairs were treated this woman telogen hairs, except those were very thick, which were in late anagen phase. In the picture you can see some thick hairs on his neck. Those hairs were cut with scissors in order to conceal its existence without interfering with further treatment. In short, the need for subsequent clearance depends only on the number of hairs that let in the first clearance.
The picture(later) was taken 9 months after start of electrolysis treatment/ Blend: 1,5"
Note: James, this is important, if not clearly understood, please correct me.
Orange, perhaps you see more clearly here. Results after first clearance.
Hello, I empathise. As covered in another post I’ve had horrific ingrowns (including big welts like finger tips) on my neck (male) and jaw line, from 3 practioners. I should have taken photos. Couldn’t bare it! The in-growns are just resolving now, 3 months later. Though the violet scars will take about 6-12 months to fade. Since December (3 months ago) I’ve asked them to zap the hairs and leave them there hoping they’ll drop out in due course. My entire beard area has been done about 4-5 times now and I’d say about 1/5 of the hairs are gone. Though there’s new growth coming through. Anyway, I am persisting. There don’t seem to be any new majr ingrowns. I’ll give it another 3 months to judge how effective this strategy is. I had nasty cystic acne as a late teen so (remembering that I survived 2 years of that and came out of it pretty good; lol) I’m taking it all in my stride. 
PS - reason I’m having the electro is I am sick of the in-growns and acne from shaving.
Good going AussieRobert. I would guess that part of the problem is vision equipment. Working the neck is even more difficult when one has only a circle lamp to show the way. Worse still if the hairs break off while one is trying to remove them.
I would add that you may do well to increase your intake of vitamin C and zinc to help your skin due to your history. Vitamin A palmitate and D-3 would be a help as well.
Thanks 
Quote from one site: “There are several drawbacks with electrolysis. Firstly, the electric current can damage normal skin around the hair follicle resulting in scarring. Secondly, since it is impossible to see the hair follicle that is being treated, the practitioner cannot be certain that the electric current is being placed in exactly the right space”
I guess that I was exactly that happened with me… the electric current can damage normal skin around the hair follicle and because the skin inside was damaged by invasive method, it results in further ingrown!Ugh!! Today I am going to a doctor because my sores from removing ingrown hairs cannot being healed for five months already!
Good luck everyone else with electrolysis! I wish you won’t ruin your skins as I did!