of if you only have a couple areas that bother you most, do electrolysis and just remove those.
Exactly. I tell everyone, if you don’t want to gamble, you do electrolysis. Of course, since you are in violation of HairTell Pet Peeve #1, (No location info in profile) we can’t help you find anyone providing good results in your area, who is both experienced with men, and fast.
Any male who can buy beer without showing ID needs someone who can remove more than 100 hairs per hour comfortably.
I’ve seen old people with just a couple on their chin that looked awful.
Maleface. First, you should NEVER look directly at OLD PEOPLE! Its not good for either of you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Anyway, I have no promise for even reduction; in fact, I have cautioned guys against it since it is possible (probable) that you will have instant and full clearance on certain parts of your face. Yes, on each treatment (with enough power), I get normal shedding all over followed by some regions that have NO regrowth of dark hair (for 3+ months). This is very different than for other body areas on me.
I am going for full clearance and have experienced patches of full clearance (with other areas that seem to have NO reduction at all). I hope that within 8 treatments, I’ll have so little dark hair left, that I can move to electrolysis to clear off any significant dark hairs. Ahem, then on to the grey ones?
I have noticed that shaving is much easier even if it is needed more often (in order to prevent the appearance of irregular stubble). But, I don’t have many folks really noticing that my hair now grows stubble on the chin/jawline but not on my cheeks much. I bet I could shave those “5 stray hairs” in 5 seconds and would be glad to do it!
I suspect that there are few non-TG/TS men who have put in the effort (and $$) to COMPLETELY clear their beards. But, having a perma-smooth face would be soo nice…
As for JJ’s results, this just shows that you CANNOT predict the outcome and even then, it is a LOOONG wait to see what that outcome is. I have had just 5 treatments, but I have no pigment issues (type II/III here), minimal ingrowns, no acne, lotsa pain during treatment, no pain afterwards, and swelling/redness for 12 hours after treatment. I do think that my LHR team is well-trained and they do only LHR. They have been cautious (thus a treatment or two that did very little), but I can respect that attitude.
I suppose that LHR IS a gamble. I am winning, while JJ has lost. It may reverse for me and (I hope) JJ gets his situation resolved (by electrolysis I suppose). Go for many consultations with providers, read LOTS, try a test area (perhaps the neck), get references, and prepare before you begin.
Hi:
I kind of missed the following as posted by James.
I agree with pretty much all of it. I had laser at first and then did extensive electrolysis afterwards. In fact I am still going for minor work, but the worst of it is far behind me. Laser was not the answer for me, since I needed total clearance.
I am currently post-op.I started laser on my face almost 3 years ago. 6 months into that I started electrolysis.
I would have classified my beard as an average male beard
at the start.
Alicia
Here is waht James said:
Here is what you have to consider. A transsexual starts hair removal work as a fully functioning man. Simultaneous to hair removal, or post hair removal, the transsexual begins hormone therapy to eliminate the normal male hormone levels, and replace that profile with a female hormonal make up. This means that keeping a transsexual beard cleared is easier than keeping a genetic male beard cleared, although the initial clearance takes as much work to do.
To simplify it, anything that can’t clear a transsexual and stay clear thereafter, has no hope of clearing and keeping clear on a normal man. Anything that does work on a transsexual can at least get a normal man to the point of clearance, and the only issue would be any further hair follicle recruitment the body may do later.
A transsexual who transitioned at 13 or 14 might not need any hair removal at all, or very little. One who transistioned at 22 would have much less hair to remove than one who was 30 years old, and still less than one who was 40 or 50.
When it comes to full permanent beard removal, the transsexual population are the ones who have had the most work done, on the most frequent basis, and have the most motivated treatment schedules. Again, if it doesn’t work for them, it can’t work for you, as you will always have more male hormones than they will, although you both may start out with the same number of hairs.
Is that clear enough?
As jimmyjames stated, he “had a poor chain and techs”, so his results are also poor. Not the gold standard to base laser upon.
If you read enough, I think you’ll find that electrolysis might be the best alternative for the face. Review the Professional Electrolysis section.
here is an interesting post on the subject from an MD who owns a chain of clinics in Texas and has been doing this (including some studies himself) for almost 10 years (since lasers first surfaced)
"jim1976 wrote:
I have 3 patches on my left shoulder that now have 50% more hair than the rest of my back, before the patch tests I had equal growth all over. explain that ! I can supply picks to prove.
Very simple to explain. And very easy to prove with hair counts. Pictures not required.
All the hair you are ever going to have is present at birth, but most of that hair is in a dormant stage. It is there but just not growing. It is well known that certain things can stimulate dormant hair to grow. Things like hormonal change, age (which is probably related to hormonal changes), and a host of other issues such as chemical burns and reactions to noxious stimuli.
So you come in for laser hair removal to treat an area that has 50 hairs. But there may be 300 hairs that are dormant. The laser hopefully kills all the hairs and shocks the other hairs into dormancy. This is why there is a period when there is no hair growing (it doesn’t always happen but is what is expected). Then after a period of time, the next crop of hairs start growing. But the energy in the laser can also stimulate hairs that would otherwise be dormant to also start growing.
So instead of having just fifty hairs growing, there may be a hundred. What does it mean, nothing. Other than it helps to make the laser hair removal more effective because now there are more active hairs growing that can be targeted and killed if the settings and the laser are effective.
This experience tends to go away after treatment number three or four, when a significant proportion of the hair is destroyed. But it can look weird and be unnerving in the beginning."
You can find this post here:
http://cosmeticenhancementsforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20285&highlight=#20285
Can electrolysis cause scarring?
not with a good electrologist. this is like asking if waxing causes skin burns. if the waxing person knows what they’re doing, they won’t put on wax that’s so hot it will burn you. you can read more about electrolysis on the electrolysis part of this forum.
Just an update.
I saw yet another derm who did not have good things to say about laser hair removal for the beard.
I’m so frustrated by this. I feel cheated and disfigured. To explain the patches I tell people I have alopecia areatia on my beard instead of admitting laser hair removal gone awry.
Have you considered getting rid of what’s left with electrolysis, jimmyjames? Sorry if you already explained this in an earlier post.
Dee
For the original poster, I put up a summary of my experience doing LHR on my beard. Hopefully this link works.
http://www.hairtell.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/33631/an/0/page/1#33631
I had it done on the front of my neck, which was just as thick as the beard on my face. I have a very, very thick beard.
Like I said in the post - I think I used the wrong machine. I only have reduction and not clearance, so I still nedd to shave it - but it is much lighter and finer. Also - no patchiness, it’s very uniform.
I’m currently somewhere around 2.5 year mark.
hope that helps.
That’s interesting that your hair has stayed fine. All my remaining hair is coarse again.
You say your hair growth stabilized at 8 months. Do you mean you stopped getting new hair? Or are you refering coarseness?
I’m at about six months and wondering for how long new hairs will be sprouting.
When I said that it stabilized, what I meant is that during the 8 month period since my last treatment, I noticed more and more hairs appear (density increase) and also noticed that the hairs themselves got a bit thicker (from being almost too fine to see, to definately being noticeable but not as thick as they used to be).
Since about the 8 - 12 month mark, the state of the hair on my neck has pretty much remained the same up to this point.
My time frames are definately not exact, because I didn’t keep records; I’m just going by memory.
Again - I believe I used the wrong machines, and I did have a significant gap in my treatment schedule. I consider my results to be okay -
CONS
I definately don’t have total clearance and I still need to shave it (although I can get away with not shaving for a couple of days and it looks okay). I really don’t think that I would be happy if I had done the beard on my face (vs on my neck) since I’d rather have a thick beard or no beard than the sparse/light hair that my neck has now - but that’s just my personal preference.
Also kinda weird looking that I have a permanent beard line. But I like it.
PROS
No more ingrown hairs! No more razor burn on my neck! No more having a beard that almost connected up with my chest hair! The skin on my neck was starting to look kinda harsh from constant shaving and ingrowns. It is now incredible easy to shave my neck - a few quick passes of the razor. I have a Homer Simpson-style permanent 5 o’clock shadow - but I no longer have this on my neck. And my neck skin is much better off for it. Extremely glad I got this procedure; and since I got it done a few of my friends who saw the results also did it.
Since I’m going to be getting more LHR done, I’m considering re-doing my neck. Just need to decide if I want to drop the extra $$ on an area that will be subject to diminishing returns.
I’d be interested to hear how things progress for you over the longer term.
Yeah, that’s what I thought you meant. I’ve had another 1 or 2 people say the regrowth stops around 6+ months.
Were you taking any kind of meds like prednisone that might contribute the regrowth?
Nope, I wasn’t on any type of drugs. And I’m a straight male, so no hormonal treatments or anything to interfere with results.
Lagirl, I’ve read this post you’ve quoted, and I must say that it sounds crazy!
It says that laser can stimulate hair follicles that didn’t grow hairs and make them grow terminal hairs. If you had 50 hairs before you might have 100 after laser. And it says that this is a positive thing becuase then you can kill all of the follicles. But that’s just stupid. Everybody knows that most of the time all of the hairs return after LHR even if it takes one year or two years. And the final outcome will be that you have 50 hairs growing instead of 100. haha <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Everybody knows that most of the time all of the hairs return after LHR even if it takes one year or two years.
Just to clear this up. This is not true and I’m not going to go into this discussion again and again. There are plenty of posts on here already about this. It’s your personal opinion. “Everybody” doesn’t know it and you don’t have the personal experience to judge by. The doctor who wrote that post is a physician who’s been in this business for 8 years and owns an entire chain of successful clinics in Texas btw.
Sure, there are always some sucessfull cases. But many of not most people se regrowth. Therefore maybe one should be informed that one will have double the amount of hair growing follicles after LHR. And this information should be given to you preferably before you start treatments and pay the money.
most cases are successful. you see a relatelively disproportionate amount of people complaining here BECAUSE this is a forum. people who’ve had success don’t seek out forums to resolve issues. and in general, areas with almost no hair or sparse hairs shouldn’t be treated with laser, which can avoid this altogether. AND that doesn’t happen on everyone and on all parts of the body. this is in certain areas only (woman’s face and men’s back/upper arms/shoulders), so yes, people with sparse finer hair on those areas should be aware that it’s a possibility, but which can be resolved with treatments, but also that they can get electrolysis done on those areas if the hair is finer and more sparse anyways.
Iranian Swede,
Did you have your beard grow back too? Can you tell us about your experience please? I’d really appreciate it.