I’m a male getting laser removal on my chest. Below is an image taken 2 weeks after my second treatment with a diode laser. My technician seemed fairly knowledgeable, and I observed them doing adequate overlapping.
Thanks in advance for helping me understand this.
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Please excuse the person posting above. They seem to be copying and pasting stuff from their website and posting in unrelated threads.
To answer your question, it doesn’t look like overlapping is done properly. If it was, you wouldn’t be seeing these stripes. Btw, are the remaining hairs shedding? Have you tried pulling on them? Do they slide out without resistance? They definitely look coarse enough to be affected by laser. The problem here is technique.
Btw, what is the spot size of the LightSheer laser being used? And what joules and pulse are they using?
Hah, that spammer confused me for a bit. I though the picture was obvious that I have light skin and coarse dark hair.
I experienced shedding on the parts where there is no hair. The coarse hairs in the picture are firmly anchored, and are continuing to regrow normally. As for settings, I’m not sure about spot size or pulse, but I think it was set to 24 joules. The technician had it higher (I think 28) but I was in too much pain so they turned it down. I was wondering if a higher setting might have enough power to kill the zebra striped hairs.
I paid for another session already, so when I go in again in two months, I’ll demand more overlappage. I’d be curious to know what you’d guess my ideal settings would be fore spot size, pulse, and power. Thanks again.
You should NOT wait for 2 months. You should go in within the next week or so for a touchup treatment. And given the results we see in this picture, they should really do it for free. This isn’t the result of settings. This is a result of a sloppy job. They need to fix it or you’re going to have patchy results, potentially. You paid to have the entire area treated.
If your skin can handle higher settings, you should use higher settings. If you can’t handle the pain, use ice packs and numbing cream etc. It’s best to use high settings to avoid not actually killing the hair. But this is just info in general. For this problem specifically, they need to overlap properly which they’re obviously not doing.
It’s really impossible to tell settings over the internet. We can’t see you. It’s best if you tell us what they are using on you and what your skin type is according to them, and we can help you judge if they’re too low.
Thank you so much for the feedback. I’ll follow up with them and report back.
Just one small question. Why would the regrowth follow such an organic pattern that does not relate to the pattern the technician took? My zebra stripes are diagonal, while the technician traversed horizontally, and they grow on areas where I’m certain the laser zapped.
Sorry to ask so many questions, but I figure I’ll have a better chance demanding a touchup if I’m better informed. Thanks so much in advance.
This is a pretty common occurence which is always due to bad technique. I’m not sure how to answer your question… I can only suggest that you were probably in some pain and likely didn’t pay attention to each and every stroke. In addition, with this machine, using compression when treating is necessary. If they glided instead of using the up and down method, missing areas is a huge possibility. I would ask them to use the up and down method and use compression.
Just a quick update. I visited a dermatologist in town that advertises their GentleLase laser. She said that she’d never seen patchy regrowth of the magnitude that I had exhibited. I returned to the place that gave me my treatments with this information. They said it was normal and saw nothing wrong with it.
So here’s my plan, I’m signed up with the GentleLase place in a few weeks. If they give me a treatment that is patch-free I’m going to ask for a refund from place #1 for all the remaining sessions I had pre-paid for.
Here’s the problem, I told place #1 my plan and they informed me that they absolutely, under no circumstances give refunds for pre-paid sessions. Does that seem reasonable?
From a consumers standpoint, NO! From a business person’s standpoint, NO! They should be working with you to correct their error.
SUE THEM IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT. It only costs about $50 and no lawyer is needed. They may give you the money to avoid going to court.
You may have observed her overlapping, but if she was moving the laser tip faster than the laser was firing, you’ll have missed spots. At first glance, it looks like the bare areas are the paths that the tech moved the laser. But, when studying the picture more carefully, I think she went diagonally right to left, pulse, miss, pulse, miss, pulse, miss. It looks as though this was a LightSheer, and she was gliding, holding the trigger in, and gliding faster than the laser could recharge, cool, and fire the next pulse. If they truly think this is normal versus bad technique, they need some additional training. I personally think they should retreat this free of charge, and refund your prepaid treatment. I would hound the heck out of them, and tell them you are consulting with your local news station’s consumer advocate.
I agree with Choice. The bad technique here is obvious. And you have pictures to prove it. I would make a fuss so that they get a bit worried that you’ll get the bad word out and won’t just forget about it.
One more thing. As you already experienced, it’s not a great idea to prepay before you have a chance to test out the clinic and tech. Just because they have a good machine, doesn’t mean they know how to use it. I wouldn’t do it with GentleLASE place you found either, just yet. Do one treatment without prepaying for any package and see how things go. In fact, I would recommend to check out 3-4 more places that have GentleLASE before you settle on any one of them. Go for consultations, ask the right questions and ask what settings they will use. Then judge who’s best to try out based on that.
Some more pictures. I’m having my arms done too, same problem. In the photo you can actually see what looks like a series of pulses down my arm where no hair has grown:
Thus, your screen name… I thought I was looking at a zebra with polka dots. Thanks for sharing your pictures
Yep. Definitely the result of gliding and going too fast over the area. Ask them to use up and down method and press with each pulse.
