I know I am late, but, to answer your question, you can use most probes to do such work, but the stiffer the probe, the easier it would be to use. As such, a Ballet size 6 would be the top of the firmness in that line. One would also find it better to use a blend process for warts, skin tags, moles, and such. Of course, that is my opinion, and I am sure there are those who will leap to disagree. They are welcome to share their experience and insights.
A month ago, I had a funny “age spot” appear on my arm. Dr. Chapple thought it was just a mole, but since it had developed in the last 6 weeks, he removed the whole thing (surrounding tissue too). The initial tests said the lesion was benign, but the frozen section showed this to be a cancer. And, that’s the point.
Even an experienced medical doctor cannot determine if a lesion is benign or cancerous. Warts, moles, skin tags and age spots should not be removed by anyone but a physician … and then biopsy performed if indicated. A hair or a telangiectasia (capillary) is a pretty safe bet that that is exactly what it appears to be … very little risk here. We should not go beyond that (and yes, removing blood vessels by non-medical people is also “questionable” by various authorities.)
I was on the phone this week with a woman that wanted me to tell her how to remove sebaceous hyperplasia and other lesions with her electrolysis unit. I don’t think any of us should do such lesions. Can you imagine “erasing” a perceived “age spot,” only to find it was a cancer that had been allowed to grow and become life threatening?
Yes, MANY of the “T-Tron” type devices (and electrolysis units) include instructions for removing all kinds of lesions … by estheticians. I’m against this practice. Just because you CAN do it, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
Basically, stick to hair removal.
[font:Book Antiqua][size:11pt][color:#000099]Sounds right Michael. There was another post with a link to a video where a red mark, looked like maybe a tiny broken capillary or something right under the skin , nothing raised. The video showed the tiny red dot as it disappeared with a tiny, shallow pulse from the needle. It was done by a pro E. in real time.
Not certain of the name of the mark , a cherry something and not sure where the thread is, but if i find it i will link a photo.That is exactly what has appeared on my forehead about 6 months ago. I think its from my past life in India.
my E said he could easily do it but it did not work at all, in fact it looks a little worse.
If you know what that red dot is that i am referring to Michael do you include that in your warning?[/color][/size][/font]
Michael, what this information from biopsy about cancer give you? You should pay special attention to the area after the mole was removed? What would happen if the doctor did not make the test after removing it?
Oh yes, and that’s my point.
Dr. Chapple is a top plastic surgeon with more than 40 years experience … AND he would not trust his own observation on this lesion! He sent it for lab tests. Indeed, he got fooled himself; he thought it was a “mole.”
I don’t think any esthetician or electrologist should attempt any visual “diagnosis” and then remove ANY growth of any kind from the skin … ever. This is the practice of medicine, not “beauty therapy!”
I know many estheticians do remove all kinds of lesions using blades, and a number of devices … (very common in the UK, not common in California; our laws are very specific.)
Oh, my cancer was the “good kind” and he removed the whole thing and the surrounding tissue … no scar either … this guy is amazing. (I’m paying the price for living outdoors in the sun my whole like.)
[color:#000099]Working with a Mirror
Hi All,
Just wanted to chime in on my experience with using a mirror’s reflection. This has always been a big thing in my mind that I have wanted to undertake. I remember reading posts by a very good electrologist that used to post here by the name of Aliciadarling. She was a pro, but also did DIY and commented on her experiences. She was doing face, and had mentioned that the toughest challenge was getting the angle off the skin (theta angle? z-axis?) correct. She said that getting the insertion wasn’t the hard part, it was coming in at the correct angle. Well, I agree now. It would be nice if she came back and gave us another summary. Anyway,
Area: So I was working on upper chest. About three inches above the pectoral line. This is a region where I go with either plain eye vision or 1x or 2x reading glasses. The 3x’s just don’t seem to work well here, or actually, anywhere. So anyway. My goal was to do cleanup work on fairly sparse hair. Sparse in the sense it’s about a 50% reduction from natural male upper chest.
Setup: I made an apparatus to hold the mirror as follows: I got a musician’s boom microphone stand, I took off the mic holder, I got one of those automobile dashboard accessory bendable things that allow you to attach one end with a suction-cup to the windshield, and the other end hold your cell phone. They have about 8 inches of sturdy bendable flex cord. I put a 7-inch diameter mirror on the suction end of that, and the other end attached to the boom mic stand.
View angle: I learned that I needed to keep the mirror directly in front of me, so there was no downward or upward angle of view. When the mirror is right in front of you, with no angles, it takes one more obstacle out of the process, so your brain can more easily grasp what you’re trying to do.
Handpiece / grips: After that, I learned that the longer handpiece worked better than the short handpiece for this. Why? Because you have to go through more variety of gripping/holding styles and left-right handswitching than you would normally. The long handpiece allows you to hold it like a piece of blackboard chalk, a pencil, a downward knife style, and a inwards towards the wrist style. I found myself changing up, and changing hands constantly. It went like this:
Technique: At first it went very, very slow. I only got the downward growing hairs, then I got sideways growing hairs, when I went back to downwards growing hairs, they seemed easier than before. So, as the session progressed, I found that by, and this is important, focusing solely at what I saw in the mirror, and keeping my eyes solely fixed on the mirror, and nothing else, it got easier and easier. When I would glance down at my own hand, it messed me up. I learned only to watch the needle tip in the mirror. Your hand will take care of itselft on autopilot the more you adjust. It’s kind of like working without a mirror, I don’t look at my hand, no, I look at the follicle, the hand takes care of itself.
Extraction quality factors: So anyway, as I switched from left to right, and holding styles to clear this area, my work, of course was not as usual. I would say it took me back to my first half-year’s experience level. I mean, I am more overall more knowledgeable now of course, but in terms of kill/clean extraction rate and speed, it was about like my first six months with Flash. About 70% to 80% were coming out with clean sheathes and bulbs. I found myself hesitant to do my high hit too shallow, because I really don’t want unneccessary eschars/temporary surface marks in this area. I wear a lot of tanktops. And as a result, a weak high hit will allow the sheath to stay in the follicle. So, I have to work on that because it resulted in some extractions not appearing so optimal. The difficulty is more with the growing angle. Hairs growing upwards high on the chest/collarbone growing towards the chin were more difficult, hairs growing towards the ground were easy.
Needle bending concerns: At first my needle bending concerns were on “the approach”, but that became easier, the needle was stressed more on the exit. Instincts to quickly remove the needle from the follicle kind of kicked in as time went by, and I found myself pulling the needle out at wrong angles, ‘bending’, or at least torquing’ on the needle. This was an instinct that was hard to suppress.
Mental focus: Also, I found all the angles were fairly easy to compensate for, the most difficult was, once the insertion was made, the act of pulling in or out laterally, the needle (into or away from the plane of the skin), so I had to be purely visual with this. Watch the dimpling or tenting of the skin and correct it. This gets kind of hard to do, because you have to think about hand movement in reverse, and once I become conscious, it messed me up. It’s kind of like when you go down stairs, once you start thinking about your foot placement, it can interfere.
Tips: So,
Keep the mirror perfectly horizontal to minimize interfering angles.
Use the long handpiece
Keep solely focused on the mirror, and nothing else.
Be prepared to use a variety of holding styles and switch from left to right.
Also keep your light source directly above. Blocking my own light was an issue.
Summary: I can only say, on this area, with my experience, with my setup, this was possible and relatively not a problem. It is not optimal, you’ll get more prominent eschars most likely because the inserts aren’t as clean. Be delicate with the insertions and very mindful before hitting the footswitch, watch the dimpling levels, finding the botton of the follicle is not a problem. I wouldn’t try to dig out ingrowns with a lancet with loupes in a mirror, too much damage. After while I was doing pretty good, it was easier to get the insertion than to extract the hair with forceps afterwards. I found the insertions happening quickly when I just stared at the follicle and let the hand do it’s own guiding. And after I returned to normal working style on a different bodypart, I found myself blazing with auto-insert, because ‘normal’ seemed so much easier.
Hope this helps someone sometime like Aliciadarling’s posts helped me.[/color]
[color:#990000]Hi Everybody,
My ongoing war with my abdomen. It’s basically turned into the most difficult electrology I have ever had to do in my few years of DIY. It can best be described as a trench war. The trenches are what the ingrowns are dug into, and I’'m spending all my time rooting them out. After the initial clearance, that now leaves all the weird stuff that was under the surface a week ago. Ingrowns that I passed over just to finish the first clearance. Some of these follicles are a real mess, completely unpredictable. I’m watching my once-proud kill ratio plummet, and it’s not good for the ego.
My usual plan has always been to shave an area, then work on it two to three days later. That has always given me good insertions, and easy to line-up follicle angles. I don’t think that works in an area prone to ingrowns. I’m thinking the weekly shaving is just making a bad situation worse. I’m thinking, many of these ingrowns may just be by-products of the shaving. Many have blunt-cut ends. They’re not fresh hairs.
I’m thinking; don’t shave stomach anymore. Just leave it alone, and let everything come to the surface naturally. Then, although the insertions are more difficult for a DIYer, just slow down, and work with each one carefully, no longer having the little three-day stubble as a more exact hair angle guide. Even so with only 5-6 days growth, I’m finding it much more difficult to get consistant, clean extractions with sheathes and bulbs.
I was so upset that this might be all due to those darn Syneron Comet RF+Diode Elos laser treatments, that I went to the medspa.com (?) site and left them a long post about how I feel about that laser and what a disaster it helped cause.
Anyway, I’m thinking, I have to develope a new strategy for these new obstacles. It might be to upgrade to 4.5x loupes and brighter light to get more exact insertions and a better look at how the hair disappears as goes below the surface of the skin. And, the 5%-10% pili multigemini hairs in the lower region of abdomen don’t make it any easier.
What a mess. I’m thinking, what would one of my favorite pros do? Probably stop the Flash and only go with Blend, and maybe that’s what I should do. Think I’ll try that tonight. I better dust off my Blend books, I think it’s the best way out of this.[/color]
This probably does not involve pili multigemini, but only a few hairs cross each other coinciding in the follicular ostium. The angle in this area is very flat.
Treat them with Galvanic exclusively and go from there. I have a feeling they’ll either die with the acidic lye or straighten themselves out. Remember, even if an insertion into the follicle is improper the lye still ‘seeps’ into the follicle.
I know where you’re coming from, anything under a 70% kill rate i call a failure. I can’t count the types when i considered myself having a perfect insertion only to be plucking hair…
iLikeDIY, what changed? and how long did it take to reach a kill rate above 70%?
[color:#000099]Hi Josefa,
I see what you’re describing, and I wish that was the case. I got to looking in a book at the UCSD Medical library and it’s pretty much classic pili multigemini. I wish I could take a picture for you. i had a few in my tweezers last night that were textbook examples. They look like little palm trees sprouting from either two very close follicles, or seemingly one follicle. I’m really glad I don’t have too many of these, I could imagine some of the accounts I’ve read.
They can happen in patches, and can be two, three, or more hairs bound together like little trees. Now that I’ve made some adjustments, they’re clearing quicker. I’m pretty happy. I’m glad I’m in a position to get rid of them in a few clearances.
What I seem to observe is: When they are newer, younger, they look almost like one hair, except for the whispy tops where they branch away from each other. As they get bigger and coarse they form a “V”. Then, when really coarse at full size, they form two finely seperated parallel hairs with bulbs that are sitting right next to each other, and contacting each other closely, like a “figure 8” on it’s side.
But thanks Josefa, I meant to tell you that I liked your site’s video, and watching you working on that leg with grown out hair gave me the inspiration to allow my stomach hairs to grow out. I’m letting them grow out naturally to avoid ingrowns. So far it’s working out, but insertions take longer to get the incoming angle correct. The hair is sparse enough now that really it’s no big deal or bother in terms of not shaving.[/color]
[color:#990000]Hey iLikeDIY,
Okay, I don’t want to sound like I’m saying something remedial here, because, I just had to “re-learn” this myself recently, but take the following advice in this case:
I can’t count the types when i considered myself having a perfect insertion only to be plucking hair
When it’s a good insertion, your angle and depth are good, and your machine’s power settings are on target, and you’re still pulling out hairs with no sheath or bulb, look at your foot pedal. Yup. If it’s contacts are dirty, maybe wires got strained, or, big one here, if it’s sitting on carpet, like shag carpet, pile carpet, any carpeting, this will mess you up. Make sure your footswitch is sitting on top of something like a board, or book. Something that doesn’t give when you press on it.
I know, sounds silly. But myself, upon getting back to it after about a year off I went back to using the footswitch because my skills weren’t at the auto-insert level yet. Back when I used the footswitch, I had the pedal resting on a piece of plexiglass of which I have since thrown away. I knew, I KNEW! I had that there for some reason, but had forgotten it’s purpose. So anyway, recently, I noticed; good inserts, good deptha and angle, tap, tap tap, pluck! …? Hmm, I felt the therm pulse, but it was weaker. It seemed to only hit at full strength when i left my foot pressing on the pedal hard. So what was it? It really undermined my confidence, because I began to think I was in over my head, my kill rate was deteriorating.
So anyway, I checked the handpiece wires, took the pedal apart and cleaned the contacts, but most importantly, put a ceramic tile under the footpedal to give it a firm surface. Viola, got back on it, clean powerful hits all day long, kill rate went right back up. I felt so much better! I sat there and did an extra hour and a half of work. Moving way faster.
Having your footpedal on carpeting is not good, especially with the dual-button Apilus pedals that have the rubber covers. On carpeting, you get less sure delivery, and it won’t always be full strength according to what I observed. I used to think either it gave a full strength hit, or none at all. I think it can cut a pulse short if the pedal doesn’t deliver a full, complete signal.
Anyway, just a long winded reply, maybe it’ll help someone.[/color]
[color:#3366FF]Hi Everybody,
Progress,[/color]
[color:#993300]I continued to do mirror work on upper chest. I hit about 50-75 hairs using a mirror. It has became easier. My kill rate seems to near what non-mirrored work is. But, one thing that is deceiving is, many times, at least with me, when you just pluck hairs on the sternum and just beow the neck, they will come out with sheathes and bulbs anyway, without any zapping. So, what’s killed and what’s not can be misleading in these areas. Time will tell. Anyway, I’m getting proficient enough in the mirror with loupes, that now areas I used to get bare-eyed, or with 1x or 2x readers, I now get using a mirror and loupes. It’s just a lot more easy and accurate once you get used to it.
[/color]
[color:#CC0000]Just for fun, and knowing I don’t have a beauty contest booked for at least the next ten years (I’m a guy), I thought I’d try hitting a few face hairs. Note: I have never done any face hairs in all my few years of DIY electrolysis. The area I thought was easiest to hit was front chin, right under the mouth. I tried three hairs and they were pretty tough to get not good, but great insertion angles. It takes optimal/ great insertions to really get these hairs good. Being a male, I think these “beard” hairs are anchored in there like steel. They are truly big, coarse, thick, healthy hairs. The real deal. Of the three, one came out easy with sheath and bulb, the other two were less than positive kills. Pain wasn’t really a large factor. I noticed that weird ‘buzzing’, like ‘resonating’ sensation with the pain that seems to start to appear once you get to upper upper chest. It’s not the typical burning point sensation so familiar with Flash, but an electrical shocky feeling. Which is kind of cool. Note, anyone reading, the pain levels are really just discomfort and prick-type feelings. Don’t get the impression I’m suffering in any way.
[/color]
[color:#FF0000]Whenever I feel this ‘electrical /shocky/buzzing’ sensation in the upper upper chest / neck / face area, it makes me wonder how current affects the more intricate areas of our bodies that use currents to operate. This is AC thermolysis, I wonder the effect of galvanic. It also makes me wonder how these eastern religions talk about energy points going up the center of your body come into play. I am not an eastern religion follower, but I think the concept of chakras, as they call them, must have originated somewhere, and maybe have some basis that electrolysis unintentionally taps into.[/color]
[color:#FF6600]I may attempt face again as I’ve wanted to trim, put a clean edge, on my upper cheek beardline. But if it happens, it’ll have to wait. I have so much other stuff on my plate that it’s just an after thought. Besides, DIY is really great, but I think my pro would do it so much quicker with less eschars.[/color]
[color:#FF0000]Abdomen work continues to be a trench war. Between mirror work and pulling out buried ingrowns, the few areas that do have ‘normal’ growth left are a joy to get, and I move through them like lightning. Anyway, on the lower abdomen last night, i think I extracted one of the largest hairs I ever have. It took about five really strong hits to free it. It came out like a tree trunk, sheath and bulb. I wanted to have my picture taken standing next to it like a prize tunafish. The area it came from is rife with hairs growing under the skin. It seems the more I look, the more I notice, because it didn’t seem that way before(?).
[/color]
[color:#CC0000]Letting the hair grow out, no more shaving, is turning into a good strategy. Shaving only makes everything worse, and reburies budding ‘almost-ingrowns’ finally breaking the surface. I learned to use the lancets in an optimal manner to free up ingrowns with minimal skin tissue damage. I come in with the lancet directly opposite the direction of growth, kind of meeting it head-on. Then, I try to pry it out of that opening. So when it free’s up, it can point out in it’s natural growth path. I used to come in from the side/almost directly above it, and flick it out. I think sometimes the situation can vary with chosen approach.[/color]
[color:#993300]I find the ultimate hair challenge with ingrown pili-bifurcati hairs. Once you free up the two ‘antennae’ hairs, they are just going all over (bad hair day), so you kind of just smooth them out with witchhazel. Once they kind of get rested and straightened, the insertion path is pretty clear and they’re a joy to just blast right out. I only got about 7 to 10 of those last night. They slow the work down immensely, but the reward of permanently getting rid of a big puffy dark ingrown under the skin is well worth it, and makes an aesthetic difference.[/color]
[color:#993300]So there it is, about the third week on adbomen, seeing new sprouts, getting rid of old ingrowns, and cleaning up upper chest. It’s coming together, but it’s a lot of work. This is no cakewalk. And I’ve learned not to be sloppy in an area with whis many complications.[/color]
[color:#3366FF]Take Care
btw: James, are you flooded out? Isn’t there another in NYC too? Barbara? Please don’t do your electolysis standing in a foot of water. At least get the fish out of the office. :)[/color]
New LED version of the circline (T9?) flourescent light
[color:#3333FF]Does anybody know about the availability of these new Circline replacements:
I see sites that allow importing by bulk, but I just want them for my two circline lamps. They directly replace the old circlines. All you have to do is bypass the balast something or other, it’s supposed to only take a minute or two of messing with the visible wires.
Anyway, they also come in 21 watt, and 26 watt (the brightest) versions. I figure most here may use something else, but some of you may have an old circline on a swingarm laying around that you may want to upgrade into a light bright enough to use. I myself have a halogen/circline combo lamp as my main, and a good sturdy magnifying circline-only that’s more of an accessory lamp. Replacing with two 1,000+ lumens cool temp lights running at 24 watts would be kind of good!
Thing is, the halogen can get outright hot. These LED’s give off even more light and are very cool temperatured, last a long time, and use very little energy. At $49 dollars, I really would like one asap. There’s a lightbulb emporium down here in San Diego. I’m going to try them. They’ll probably charge more though. Let me know if any of you have been able to find one. There’s quite a few versions of them.
Thanks[/color]
I’m really glad to see all of these posts about DIY. You are very brave to attempt this difficult process yourself! My main question is: Do you do this to save money, out of embarrassment or other reasons? The process can be time-consuming and the results less than professional.
Embarrassment? I have no shame! 
I started DIY because i couldn’t stand looking at myself and seeing all this hair that i didn’t want. By nature, i think i’m more curious than others to see how things work and i like to tackle ‘big jobs’. I really started to grind into doing electrolysis because i couldn’t afford the extra $10,000 it would take to do everything i wanted done and lo’ and behold its actually become quite the addiction!
The best thing i’ve taken away from electrolysis is not only being able to remove any hair that i want done at anytime, i’ve also moved onto more advanced parts of electrology.
i think the ‘results’ that DIY’ers would see is how apt they are to learn the process (remember, mistakes DO happen) and how much time and effort they are willing to put into it.
I haven’t started any DIY yet but I have become interested because I cant find a pro where I live. Unfortunately i wont be able to treat my face which is really where i wish to have work done. however i am becoming more hooked so I want to learn anyways. Inquiring minds like to know…
DIY is very honourable so no shame or embarrassment at all. I hold DIY education of any craft in the highest regard. When we rise to the challenge of learning a new skill we empower ourselves.
Any yes of course the money saved is a big bonus.
[color:#993399]lo’ and behold its actually become quite the addiction![/color]
[color:#CC0000]It can be addicting. I find electrolysis, either pro visits or DIY, to be very mind clearing. I find any worries or pre-occupations I have quickly disappear with electrolysis. The repetitive zaps just take your mind off anything.
I was caught up in all that election drama last night. I just said whatever, time for at least a half hour of hair removal. I ended up getting lost in it for two hours, as usual, and just felt so at peace when I was done.
As I was telling Danika (in a multi-colored message with a picture of a squirrel attached) even if I’m sleepy when I start, the little shocks keep me awake indefinitely. No coffee needed. If my fingers didn’t get fatigued, I could do it all night. It’s almost a zen type thing. Once the zaps start, you really can’t worry about anything else. It faintly, faintly reminds me of the whole psychology of ‘cutting’. They do it because the immediate pain overrides any negative feelings or worries. It’s very akin to that, although an extreme comparison.
Sometimes before nodding off to sleep, I find myself imagining hair insertions, followed by a ‘tap, tap, tap’ urge. It’s funny how insertions get so automatic. That’s probably why I’m finding my abdomen so annoying, the ingrowns are breaking my natural rhthym.[/color]
I’ve just started DIYing. The first couple of sessions were completely fruitless and I was really tired and frustrated. The insertions were difficult and nothing was happening. The machine gave no signs of working and I thought I would have to give up. Then, suddenly, something just happened and it worked. I wish I knew exactly what I’m doing differently now. Maybe I’m using a different angle. I’m also keeping the needle in for one minute, because any less just isn’t enough.