Beginning LHR Soon!

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
1

Hello Everyone! My name is Roxy and I’m a new user. I’ve also posted at other forums to not only share my experiences but to also hear yours. :smiley:

My first treatment is scheduled for Sunday and I’m extremely excited and nervous to begin this whole process. Hair removal is something I’ve struggled with my whole life. I may not have a ton of hair, but my removal options are horrible. I can’t wax due to extensive bruising, shaving used to be okay but has now left me with lots of irritation and ingrown hairs, and instead of spending yet another 50 dollars at CVS searching for a new option, I decided on LHR.

I spent a few months going to several consultations and to be quite honest I was more shocked about how dirty many places were. Not to mention some of the handlers were. I have several friends and family members also undergoing LHR so I scheduled appointments with those clinics as well.

Finally I decided on a place with a great reputation, and after two months of consulting back and forth we agreed on a package.

This location uses both the Palomar Star Lux and Lumenis Light Sheer lasers. I am to arrive to my apt about half an hour early to go over the details on which is best for me but I would like to hear some advise on both so I can ask the correct questions and have realistic expectations on outcome. My cousin also goes to the same clinic and she has had wonderful results.

I will be getting full leg (including toes), full arm (including fingers), underarm, face, brazilian (eek!), and neck (cleaning up my hairline). The clinic also matched my best price quote (I got all of them in writing, and I guess with the economy being what it is, they don’t want to turn down business), 6 treatments (and any needed touchups) cost me 2100.

I am also interested to talk to all of you who are going through the process on how to … well, best be on my manners, i guess. I have always preformed bikini hair removal myself, so I don’t know what positions to expect, etc. I planned on going over this before hand with the technician, but until then I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask you all.

Anyway, any help would be nice. Thank you for reading and starting my journey with me. I haven’t had my sit down to discuss the actual particulars of what laser will be used for my treatment, but I have type III skin with no tan because I avoid sun exposure. All hair scheduled for treatment is black in color and characterized as coarse. :slight_smile:

2

The Palomar is an IPL where as the Lightsheer is a Diode (which is a true laser). Generally speaking, nearly all people get better results from using a true laser. At skin type 3, you would most likely to get better and safer results with the Diode than the IPL (although this still should be used carefully).

As a word of cuation, unless the hair on your face is dark, coarse and dense (as in a lot of it) and it is not a mix of vellus hairs (finer blonde hairs), think very carefully about lasering your face. This is the pimre target for stimulated hair growth in women, the reason being is thsi is a hormonal site so is far more likely to suffer adverse reactions ot LHR such as laser induced hypertrichosis (or laser stimulated hair growth).

Have you ever considered electrolysis for you face, it also is a good option for your hair line as the practitioner can take out each individual hair, which minimises the risk of mistakes such as going to high on one side and so on.

Other than that, your legs, bikini, underarms should see some good results, I’m not so sure about your feet and fingers unless there is a lot of hair there (again like a mans). Lower arms can get some good results if the hair is coarse enough.

Good luck with everything hun.

Regards,
Benji

(As a side note: It is good that they offer free touch ups on missed areas, this is sometimes a litle indicator on their level of interest in customer satisfaction)

3

http://cosmeticenhancementsforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7636

This same thread on another forum, that I’ve already addressed too.

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Thank you so much for the advise, Benji, I very much appreciate it. It is helping me to be so informed going in, I’m so glad I found these forums.

Lagirl, I didn’t realize you were the same poster until after I posted. Thank you for popping by. :slight_smile:

5

Okay, I am adding in a small update. I had LHR sessions on both Sunday & Thursday of this week.

On Sunday I had full leg & Underarms done. She started with my underarms to test sensitivity, and then moved on to my legs. My entire apt took about an hour and a half. My practitioner is using a LightSheer ET, forgive me in advance for not knowing the spot sizes, but underarms she used 22J (which was all I could take at that point, she said as the hair lessens, that she will be able to turn the fluence up higher). On the top of my shins and my toes she used 25J, and on the rest of my legs and the outside bikini area (around underwear and inner thighs) used 30J. I had some slight swelling, and the noticeable inflamed hair follicles, but other than that, not much discomfort. All those symptoms were gone about half an hour after treatment. Another strange thing I was not prepared for were quite a few hairs under my arms that simply “popped out.”

The Bikini areas at 30J were about as much as I could have taken though. The pain I thought I would feel was much worse than it actually was. I just breathed with the beeping of the machine and tried to stay calm and that is KEY. The minute you focus on a zap it’s hard to get back to a calm place. Overall I’d give my discomfort a 3-5 depending on area and fluence on a scale of 10.

On Thursday I had my full arms, Brazilian bikini, and perianal area done. Arms were a piece of cake, really. I had no overwhelming discomfort, however, I can tell by look at them that the treatment was effective. I still have a slight swelling but even that is almost done. Those areas were done at 30J, she did not want to go higher this sitting because it was my first treatment to the area, but said next time she will use a higher fluence.

Now the brazilian & perianal were the areas I was most concerned with pain wise. She turned the machine down to 22 (same as Underarms), however, it was definitely painful. I have very dense, coarse and black, so she opted to turn the machine up a bit higher to 28 but turned the pulse down. It took her a little longer, but the discomfort was much less than at the higher pulse. She said that it’s better if I do this treatment at this pulse speed to thin out the hair to be more aggressive during the next treatment. She turned the pulse back up and the fluence back down to 25 for the perianal area which did not bother me at all however the area is a bit sore today which I expected.

Anyway, that was my experience. I’m very happy with my clinician and the place I chose. I felt very comfortable in her care. I also discussed with her the concerns I had with doing my face and she feels like I’m still a good candidate, she did a small spot test on the side burn area and said for me to watch it until I come for my second leg session and schedule at that point. I was also not pressed to make another apt at the end of my treatments, they said to watch and see how things go before scheduling because everyones schedules of hair growth can be different. So, I will wait about 6 or so weeks before worrying about it.

I will update in about a week or so with shedding info. :slight_smile:

6

Thanks for the update. Sounds like things are going well.

Just a few notes:

  • Try to get treated at least at 25J on this machine
  • Use ice before and after to lessen the pain. Take an ibuprofen too and avoid caffeine that day. Numbing cream is an option on the areas with the most coarse hair if you can’t handle it at all.
  • Pulse is actually more effective when it’s low and less effective (but safer and less painful) when it’s high - not the other way around. So I’m assuming that’s what she did.

Do let us know how shedding goes

7

The place your going to atm sounds good. Perianal is certainly the most painful area Iv’e found to have treatment on. However, it also ususally gets good results as well. As lagirl said, if need be numbing creams can be used, especially on small areas like this.

Hope everything goes well and keep us updated.

Regards,
Benji

8

Thank you for the advise, I’m going to try that during my next treatment. :slight_smile:

I wanted to add a small update and a question that you could help me with. How does the shedding process progress? I have lost about 70% of the hair under my arms, and about 45% of the hair on my lower legs, the treatment was on April 6th, so I’m about 2.5 weeks out. the hair that is still there is not painful if tugged, but does not fall out yet. I was going to wait 3 weeks before making any determinations on what that means, the operator said that some hairs can take up to a month to fall out. So my question is this, when shedding occurs does each hair fall out? Or are there hairs left over on a normal basis and are caught on the next treatment?

My Bikini/Parianal and arms are doing well, patchy, but oddly enough it seems that my arms have really responded well to the LHR. That treatment was only two weeks ago and now I’m noticing more shedding in those areas.

My other question was if it is okay to shave after treatment? If I do shave, will it keep from shedding as easily? Will I be prone to ingrown “dead” hairs? I wanted to not touch it till it was all gone, but I wasn’t sure if that would be the end result on the first treatment.

Thanks in advance, guys. :slight_smile: