Ugg… Please keep me away from any and all lasers. All these people went in thinking good about the clinics, they all came out botched and scarred, …and it wasn’t just American Laser Centers. Botched jobs have increased by 41%.
Video:
Patients getting burned and scarred by lasers for hair removal and tattoo removal
Mantaray
I saw this piece on CNN this morning. They must have re-taped the ending part where the doctor shoots the glove. I was laughing because the original take, which was live I assume, showed the reporter saying that the doctor would now demonstrate the laser firing at some material that was laying on the table and when the doctor started to demonstrate this, the laser would not work and the doctor started fumbling with the machine in the background while the reporter was trying to cover his a–. The camera quickly shifted to the reporters face as the doctor was frantically fidgiting in the background. I see they finally made things work for an internet showing.
The laser industry is definitely trying to settle who should wield the laser wand and I’m sure they will get it right in the future as it is debated and discussed. The public has to be protected, but it always seems that critical mass tips the scales in a better direction somewhere into the future. The problem with the news media is they have to sensationalize everything. However, an increase of 41% is a high number of negative reports. How do they come by those numbers do you suppose?
sensationalism at its best. reminds me of 60 mins’s story on medical marijuana last night. they have a program to run every weekend with 2-3 “top” stories. maybe we should give them an idea of doing it on laser and electrolysis horror stories. In some sense, scaring people a little may be a good thing - maybe they’ll start being more picky and questioning the laser shops that spring up on every corner. On the other hand, it’s tiring to explain over and over here that there are more than just inexperienced clinics who are in it for the money around.
btw, increase should also be compared to increase in overall treatments performed as more and more people are going for it, especially given how much ALC advertises. without that number, this “statistic” is pretty useless. there are numerous articles stating that laser treatments performed are increasing exponetially every year.
It should be pointed out that the burns on two of the two clients showed - the back and the legs - were not lasers but IPL’s. It is only IPL’s that shoot a rectangle, not a laser.
Btw, this is nothing new. The quote they are using specifically is entirely correct and not anything that we don’t know already, i.e. “we’re seeing issues from treatments by untrained individuals…when they use lasers inappropriately…”.
Also, we have discussed this numerous times already. This entire issue is being fed to the media by physician associations who want to keep laser business in their hands by trying to pass a law where only physicians would be allow to perform it, which won’t make this less of a problem (untrained individuals are causing problems, both doctors and non).
Good point, Pea about the device in the video being an IPL. For the sake of accuracy, which is an undefined word for the press, they should have used the words “light-based systems”.
I think I agree with you lagirl about the territorial tug going on with who should have control over the LASER. There are many physicians, chiropractors, and I’m thinking dentists who get into LASER hair removal and hire people who eventually surpass what the the doctor knows. It’s a money maker.
One of my clients is a urologist. He had a lot of questions about LASER hair removal and I think I picked up that he might be interested in getting in on the gravy train.
Dee
Time for a little background and perspective.
This is a piece that was put out by the ASDS (American Society of Dermatologic Surgery). I know because until 2 years ago I was a member of the ASDS. Two of the doctors who spoke in the piece are high up in the chain, in fact, I think one of them is the current president of the ASDS.
Seven years ago the ASDS was concerned about the number of non-dermatologists and non-physicians who were getting in on what they see as their turf. There were a lot of articles and discussions about this issue in their internal publications and about 6 years ago, the word came out that they needed to combat this on the idea of patient safety. They came out with a campaign against what they call the non-physician practice of medicine (cosmetics in this case) and have been pursuing this issue and putting together a country wide media campaign about the issue. They also have a campaign against non-dermatologists, but that is another issue.
Where do the numbers come from. Well they come from what I would call non-science. They commissioned a survey where they asked all their members to report if they had seen an increase in complications from the non-physician practice of medicine. This is after all the articles and posturing. Interestingly enough in the first few go arounds only 50% of the physicians who responded to the survey actually said they saw an increase. So the 41% increase must come from a recent survey where they are still reporting seeing an increase. But without knowing the denominator, it is impossible to know what that means. Since there has been probably more than a 41% increase, this probably represents a real reduction. Furthermore every “real” study that has been attempted (and these are very hard to do) seems to imply that when you control for experience, that there is no difference between a physician doing the treatment, a non-physician in the presence of a physician, or a non-physician where there is no physician physically present.
And just to show you the mindset, I had a conversation with one of the physicians involved in this study and asked what is the definition of a reaction. In other words, how do you know what is a reaction so that you can report it. This is a very critical component of any good study and is necessary to be defined so that everyone in the survey are reporting the same thing. His answer, “We’re physicians, we all know what a reaction is.”
Note; There is an ironic twist to this tale. In liposuction, it is dermatologists who developed tumescent liposuction which is a very very safe procedure compared to general liposuction done under general anesthesia or IV sedation. Plastic surgeons prefer to do it the way they were trained and report a death rate of about 1 per 5,000 cases. On the other hand, there is no known death from tumescent anesthesia liposuction when performed under the guidelines of the dermatologists. There has been a turf battle over this between the surgeons and the dermatologists. There is no question from the research that has been done that what the dermatologists do is much safer. But the plastic surgeons have tried to limit dermatologists by insisting on hospital privileges (something dermatologists don’t routinely use or get) as a way of limiting dermatologists doing liposuction. So here is the irony. In this arena the dermatologists are insisting that real science be used and not the surveys that the plastic surgeons have commissioned concerned about patient safety. The lesson is that in the world of medicine, when you have the facts on your side you argue facts and statistics. When you don’t have the facts on your side, you argue patient safety.
As far as this report. No question that the tattoo removal reaction actually caused a keloid, which is a different mechanism and one that one has to be worried about concerning tattoo lasers. But it is also important to understand that tattoo lasers are very different from hair removal lasers. The mechanism of injury is more of a shock effect than a heat effect and are more likely to cause a scar. I believe that all lasers are not equal and that some are more likely to cause a complication than others. Tattoo is one of those lasers. There is a line to be drawn between lasers that can safely be used in cosmetic procedures by anyone and those that are riskier. I am not sure where that line should be drawn, but I tend to think it should be drawn on this side of tattoo lasers. In other words, those lasers may be too unsafe.
And as far as the laser hair removal pictures. First, those pictures have floated around the internet. Second, they were early in the reaction. Those types of reactions tend to clear up completely, though it can take months and months for the hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation that follows to completely clear up. But they do routinely clear up. Notice that they didn’t show how they look long term. And finally, as was properly noted those were IPL burns.
Screencaps of the light-based hair removal burns.
No Andrea. I know that you dont like lasers, but these were IPL burns, not lasers
That’s a misconception. I don’t like inappropriate marketing and misuse of lasers, or any other kind of hair removal. Laser is a viable option for many people with light skin and dark hair, and I report and comment on positive laser results as well.
The report states:
“This woman sued and settled after experiencing burns and scars on her legs from laser hair removal.”
It does look like the spot size associated with IPL, though, so I’ll change my earlier post.
I am not anti-laser or anything else. I am pro-result, and this report was about bad results. Having said that, it feels like a bit of a PR piece from the American Association of Dermatologic Surgery, a trade group.
Those are IPL burns, no question about it. And they are a risk from IPL. But the same kind of reactions can also occur with lasers. No one should think for a moment that hair removal lasers and other light based treatments can’t cause a complication. They sure can. But so can a curling iron.
The problem with this report and the photos is that they don’t tell you the entire story, because this report was designed to produce one message.
“Lasers are very very dangerous and only physicians should be using lasers. Everyone should demand that only physicians use lasers.”
Coming, as that message does, from physicians who stand to benefit economically with this message, one has to look beyond the story. So what’s missing.
First, we have no idea who did that treatment. What was their training and their experience? And what were the settings? How many previous treatments were done? What happened during the treatment? What kind of maintenance was performed on the device?
Now a little more perspective. There is a threshold effect that occurs with thermal damage. Below the threshold, there may be an exuberant reaction that occurs at the time of treatment, but it goes away quickly. But raise the power a joule or two above the threshold, and you can get a reaction that looks just like this. Furthermore, that threshold moves around. Especially as skin color changes due to sun exposure. Further complicating this is that the settings on the system are allowed to vary by 5% and still meet FDA quality standards. So a 20 joule setting can really be 18 joules to 22 joules in reality. So it is easy to be doing everything right and still get a reaction like this. Though reactions like this are easier to get on an IPL than on a laser.
Of course, without knowing the details we don’t know exactly what happened and why they stopped but also why they treated so much without stopping. But to think that these reactions do not occur to everyone (if they do enough treatments) is false. I have never met an honest provider who hasn’t caused a few reactions like this. Or if they haven’t, then they are having bad results but that is another story.
The other problem with this story is that we don’t see how it looked at 3 months, 6 months, and a year later. These are not scars and if properly treated should not become scars. What we are told is that she settled out of court after she sued. She may not have won in court but for what ever reason the center or the insurance company decided to pay her off and move on. The problem is that it makes it sound as if the complication was devastating to her life. Now it may have been devastating for a period of time, I’m not saying this is a good thing. But in the long run, we don’t know how it turned out and that makes it harder to truly judge how bad it really was.
Fortunately, these kind of reactions are fairly uncommon. And even more uncommon with people who have a lot of experience.
Because the companies that make the machines don’t want precedent to occur, they make sure to settle them all out of court, after delaying the cases as long as they can.
That is not necessarily true. I am aware of several lawsuits that have been settled and none of them included the laser company. They were all settled by insurance companies that were not willing to risk a trial even though there was no long term damage.
An example of what happens, though this is not specifically hair removal. Three years ago we bought a number of treatment beds that swivel. What we didn’t realize at the time was that there was a design flaw in the beds that at a certain point in the swivel, if the client was quite heavy, the bed would tip over.
We had a client fall out of a bed when this happened. We took her to the local emergency room where she was evaluated and released. We were very sorry that it happened, but she really didn’t suffer any serious damage. She sort of slide down to the end of the bed onto the floor.
We evaluated the situation and made a design change to the bed (at our cost) so as to prevent this from ever happening again. And it never has. In the meantime, the woman got a lawyer who spent the next year or so trying to find the manufacturer so as to sue under strict product liability.
We had bought the beds through a distributor called Salon depot who had gone out of business and the manufacturer was in China. And there was no way to tell who to sue. So as the statute of limitations came up, the lawyer sued us. We did nothing negligent and would have easily won the case. Though it would have cost us a lot of money. Instead, we called our general liability insurance company who gave the client $7,000 to go away. The lawyer probably took half.
The insurance lawyer told me that there was no question we would win. Maybe even under summary judgement since we had done nothing negligent and had used the bed as per its operating conditions. Again, there was absolutely no negligence. But the lawyer said it was not worth taking the risk or wasting his time and resources. So they settled. And that is how many lawsuits finish.
[b]
Botched up skin by laser.
You know these laser clinics whine because now they’re falling under MD certified control, but look what they do when they are on their own; they botch things up. They need a doctor and a babysitter.
People just need to look at the plain facts; laser operators go to a weekend course to learn how to use these things and are then cut loose to char up skin. Electrologists go to school for years and accumulate good hands on supervised experience, and master their machines.
Electrology is far more ligitamate and schooled with common sense. Actually I think it’s a travesty electrology and laser are uttered in the same breath. -AND LASER ISN’T EVEN PROVEN PERMANENT!
What a joke some of these laser operators are. A 41% increase in botched up hair removal jobs.
And it’s completely, utterly unrealistic to say that electrology can do the same. Electrology can give feedback at a much more real-time rate. An pinpoint, or the area the size of a dime is at risk if the power is too high.[/b]
And why is there a ‘Laser success story’ in the electrology section? If somebody has posted to this forum as much as thousands of posts in a few years, you’d think they’d be aware of the rules and format. Andrea, this is a formal complaint about lagirl, she completely, and blatantly showed disregard for the rules by doing that here:
http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/46029/page/1#Post46029
It would be great if this post was removed so the organized format of this forum can be retained.
maybe you should consider creating your very own biased forum.
p.s. it’s the doctors who are whining, not the laser clinics, thus the video you posted by those doctors. and, both the doctors and the other laser operators get the exact same training, so being a doctor doesn’t make things better. better training for all laser operators is what does, but you’re not concerned with that given your biased intentions.
NC recently passed a law that went into effect this week. In order to do laser hair removal without a doctor on site, you must be a licensed electrologist, have laser training from an approved school and yearly continuing education in laser in addition to the yearly electrolysis continuing education.
You will see these changes in other states, but it will be very slow. The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery is campaigning against anyone other than non-physicians doing LHR. In fact, a few years ago in FL when electrologists had a laser bill in legislation, dermatologists lobbied against the bill and handed out pictures of a LHR burn victim, claiming an electrologist had caused the burns. It turned out, the burned patient had been not been treated by an electrologist at all.
Because the news services choose to illuminate the public to these life changing injuries that the laser community tries to keep hidden does not make them sensationalistic. Sensationalizing is laser clinics putting ad after ad saying ‘throw away your razorby summer’ in publications across the United States, when in fact, they cannot do this. That is sensationalizing.
I think it’s good that the news services get these botched treatments out in the public. I’m sure there are those out there that wish they could have known they would be disfigured by a hair removal laser beforehand, so they could avoid injury.
I think this forum appreciates my fair clear posts and that’s the way it should be.
Don’t violate the rules anymore. You could get your membership here revoked.
when you get to run your own biased forum, you can tell me what to do if I choose to participate. so far, you’re the one who’s been warned not to attack other posters on here personally and continue to do so regardless. follow your own advice. enough said.
I just wanted to point out…the burns showed in the clip are severe. The whole 41% of burns are not as severe as those. I, personally, have been burned lasers…but the scabs are almost completely gone. It hurt, but it didn’t hurt so much that I wouldn’t do it again. It was still less painful than waxing…and I experienced better hair removal than a wax.