Well, I just got back from a consultation at the “second clinic” with the Lightsheer. I felt much more comfortable speaking with the practitioner she was very honest and we discussed the possible side effects. Unlike the first clinic that was just saying everything would be fine, so I’m definitely going to cross that first clinic off my list.
So, this is what I found at this clinic. First of all she is very experienced, she is a teacher at a laser institute here, so she teaches students how to use the lasers. She did give me her very honest opinion and asked me if I’ve considered the Yag. Just like LAGirl recommended. I told her I have but, because of the costs and how much more expensive it is vs. the lighsheer that I really want to consider the lightsheer. Basically she was saying that it’s going to take longer to achieve the results that I want. I had asked her if we could achieve the results within a year but, she was kind of hesitating and I think she said it could even be two years. I’m going to double check with her, if its’ really going to be 2 years then the costs might nearly come out to the same as a Yag. Because that clinic is charging $3,600 for unlimited full body, which is 12 treatments at once a month.
She did say that she works on her doctor (she’s the aesthetician) and her dr. is Indian ethnicity with same skin tone as mine.
As for side effects such as hypopigmentation and laser induced hair growth (I believe she calls it paradoxial hair growth or something). She said for the laser induced hair growth the percentage is low, about 5% out of 100 clients. She also said that the hair growth is very fine like peach fuzz. So, I think for me as a male I probably wouldn’t really mind it or notice it due to how much hair I’m already used to. She also said that it would grow back slower, so if I were to shave it etc. then if it grows back slow that would be fine with me.
About hypopigmentation she said that it’s only happened on skin type VI with her, and I think twice. So, now she does not use the lightsheer on skin type VI at all anymore. I’m a skin type IV-V in some areas where it’s more exposed to the sun I’m darker a V but, upper arms for example would be more of a IV.
Also we discussed hair density etc. and she said the same thing LAGirl mentioned for me the upper arms, shoulders and back where the hair is sparse. She said the same thing that’s usually where the areas that are sparse. She is willing to only treat the dense areas. We did a patch test on me right there, she did the neck because she said it’s a good place, there’s some coloration there, and she wanted to get that part to test. I think she did 3 different tests and wrote down the settings. Unfortunately I forgot to ask her what these settings were but, she gave me her e-mail so I can follow up if I should get those settings.
She told me a little bit about the settings she would use but, according to how the skin tone changes she changes the settings. I tried to get some numbers as a guideline she said 30ms and starting from about 4 joules, and then going up each time because she said the hair keeps getting finer and finer so the temp has to be increased each time, so she said it would go up to 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, etc. probably up to 5. She said she can go up to 8 joules but, that she would have to very careful and it depends on the skin area and that most likely she would stay under 7.
I would really like to work with her she seems to know what she’s doing and being a teacher she has the experience. She was also very honest. She did seem to recommend the Yag to achieve results quicker but, I really want to try the lightsheer because of the cost. However, I need to confirm if she feels it would take 2 years. Though, I don’t need significant reduction, even if the hair gets finer, that would be ok with me. Still, I’m not sure how “bare” I want to be, I think I would rather go slow and keep continuing towards the reduction rather than get too much hair reduced quickly and not like how it looks.
I was planning on calling the Smooth Solutions clinic with the Yag but, the online reviews kind of made me hesitate there are many negative reviews on Yelp and Google about them “just taking your money”. Perhaps that doc isn’t the one that runs it since he’s in San Antonio but, this made me nervous and the pricing is pretty expensive. However, I realize you hardly ever here from anybody that has a positive experience, nobody wants to take time out of their day to leave a positive review so you only hear from everybody when it’s negative. So, I’m planning on still speaking to them to see what they say. Or continue to see if I can find a Yag clinic that has some sort of package deal.
Based on that info, if I want to try the Lightsheer do you think that clinic is a good option?
Thanks