electrolysis: aspirin and blend vs thermo

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

hi,
i’ve started doing electrolysis for about 40 min/week over the past 3 weeks on my face. i think it’ll be looking alright after a few more sessions. after reading over this site (such a great resource!!), i am realising that i should do full clearance ASAP. so i will try to visit 2x/week this week and 3x/next week. i’ve had a history of laser treatment on my face and it worked ok on the sideburns but has left me with long dark hairs (i have type 4 skin with a dark ‘peach’ fuzz. i am of east indian descent). i think waxing left me with the same problem of simulated hair growth on chin/neck. maybe even bleaching too?? anyways, i’ve given them all up (over a year since laser and many months since waxing). yeah, i could have just started with electrolysis…

i have many questions but will start with asking a few for the knowledgeable and helpful people out there!

1-i have a few days before next electrolysis appt. should i shave the hairs so that the treatment is more effective - i.e. just active hairs are zapped?

2-i’ve been using blend over thermolysis since i would rather be assured of zapping the hairs and killing them the first (or second time). my hairs are mostly thin and long with the occasional one around my chin. i don’t feel a plucking sensation much of the time w/my electrologist. should i switch to thermolysis? am i suffering pain needlessly? they are using an apilus machine but i’m not sure of any more details.

3-speaking of pain… it does hurt more than thermolysis (which i tried casually in the summer) but i get through it with about 250mg of aspirin and wincing. can i up the intake? how much is recommended? and how much water should i drink before i go? i’ve been having about 2 cups of water/herbal non-caffeine tea so far…

THANK YOU!

#2

Thank you for your kind words. This online resource would not exist if it were not for a group of people who decided to make what they wanted to find and support it to keep it available for others. (Now if we only had more support from those who find it useful… Maybe we should start having pleadge drives and handbag giveaways. Autographed pictures of Andrea, Arlene, Dee, LAgirl and me.)

If your practitioner is proficient at thermolysis, there is no reason not to allow the practitioner to do your work in flash, as the increased number of hairs removed overwhelms any consideration for lower kill rates by sheer force of numbers. If you are removing twice as many hairs, one would still have the same result as the slower modality, even when permanently removed hairs are the only one’s counted. When the difference between number of hairs removed becomes a factor of 4 or more, there is no contest. One is even getting more hairs permanently removed in the same amount of time. The bonus is, you feel less pain as well.

Speaking of pain management, you could increase the aspirin if you wanted to, but you would be better off using something with anti-inflamatory and/or anti-histamine properties. Ibuprophen is a better choice for an electrolysis pain releaver, and if pain is not a problem, but swelling is, diphenhydramine (benadryl) is a good compliment to treatment. Just don’t mix Ibuprophen and diphenhydramine together. Not a good idea!

#3

In answer to question number one, I simply love when my clients shave or clip the hair 1-3 days before they come to their session. You know that permanent hair removal with electrolysis is highly dependent on catching hairs that are in the growth stage. Well, when one shaves or clips, the field of hair becomes less of a mystery as to which hairs are growing and which ones are dud’s waiting to shed. The growing hairs pop out over night, distinguishing themselves from the ones that remain at the surface because they are not active anymore. The popper-outers are sitting ducks since the electrologist can see them and thus zap them.

So … that’s why shaving is good for you. You get more value for your money since growing hair is being targeted and you get the added bonus of visually looking good by shaving off the unslightly hair. When you shave, it is wise to have an electrologist that has decent speed so as to eliminate ALL the noticable hair before you leave the office for each session.

This leads me into modality choices. I love blend and will need to use it about 5% of the time in my practice, however, for the reasons James outlined above, I am a PicoFlash thermolysis type of electrologist (MicroFlasher, before that).
Sensation, skin condition, deadliness to hair, time to completion are some of the positive words I use when describing these faster forms of thermolysis. Concept: PEOPLE WANT THE HAIR OFF AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. This can be achieved with Pico and Micro. It’s all about practitioner skill and equipment used. If your electrologist only feels her best using blend, you will still get permanent hair removal. If you mesh well with her and do not want to sample other electrolgist in your area, then you will still get permanent hair removal.

The faster forms of thermolysis will work well for long thin hair and the sensation you feel is far less than one second, less than a what you would feel with a bee sting. More hair can be affected as well. Apilus makes great epilators, but none of that matters much if the human skill is only partially present or even absent.

I agree about the aspirin. I wouldn’t recommend it to my clients for electrolysis. Pain is highly subjective and most of my clients don’t need anything at all, but some are so highly sensitive that general anesthesia wouldn’t help.

Dee

#4

Hi James and Dee,

Thanks for the advice. I’ll ask if they can do flash (sounds awesome) and if not, will do thermolysis. I’ll avoid painkillers for my next visit since I won’t be dealing with blend (!). This will be a satisfying use of 40 minutes, I’m sure.

#5

Hi,

So, I went with the shaved skin and my electrologist had a really easy time removing the hair - she said she knew exactly where it was coming from and she was able to zap a hair a second and they would just slide out. we were both satisfied. the area looks really good so i’ll be shaving again. thanks for the advice, Dee.

my electrologist has “micro flash” but said i should do thermolysis if i am going to do electrolysis since it has “more power/more electricity” (?). i went with thermolysis last week (less pain!). i have another appt coming up on tuesday and would like more explanation on micro-flash vs thermolysis before i go. is it the case that most hairs can be actually killed with micro-flash? or is flash recommended because it goes fast and therefore clears the area? i’m a little confused! any advice would be appreciated.

thank you.

#6

Microflash delivers more RF energy than conventional thermolysis if applied for an identical amount of time. The idea behind microflash thermo is to deliver more energy at once, but for a shorter period of time (a fraction of thermolysis timing.) The energy delivered is more intense, and more targeted.

I’ll use an example of mine (the pros may have a more accurate real-world example, and can probably explain it better, but here it goes.) I am treating 60 unit hairs, and using conventional thermolysis I set the RF at 25% and the timing to 2.0 sec. I can treat the same hair, with RF at 100% (technically only 99% but let’s make it easy) using only 0.050sec.

You should experience less pain with microflash because although the energy output is several times higher, the actual time spent zapping your tissue is a tiny fraction of what it would be with conventional thermolysis.

#7

I will really never understand why the hesitation to use microflash if one has it as a option on their epilator. It works and pulsing can make it even more deadly and comfortable. If an electrologist can insert accurately, then she’s good to go with this modality. My clients loved microflash and now that I have stepped higher to picoflash thermolysis, they are even more pleased because they can get get all the hair off fast and keep it off until there is nothing growing in about a year to 13,14,15,16,17,18 months??? Most are completed in about 12-13 months if one gets cleared and stays cleared on an appropriate schedule.

YES! Most GROWING hair can be zapped just one time with these faster forms of electrolysis. I know because I follow my clients charts closely and it has become obvious that I am completing cases far faster than when I started out as a blend electrologist. It works, but many? some? electrologists will always fall back on book-described heating patterns of the follicle with different modalities, pear-shaped verses narrow heating pattern, being the way they describe follicle destruction.

Again, MICROFLASH WORKS! I always respect the practitioners right to do what she/he see’s fit for you because she can see you. She has to do what is comfortable for her personally, but that doesn’t always mean that it is the quickest way to get finished, but be assured that you will get finished, eventually.

There is manual thermolysis (timing is over one second inside the follicle). Heat can be applied for 4 secs? 10 secs? you name it, depending on the size of the hair. This is slow. You may as well do blend if you are going to go longer timing with thermolysis. It can hurt more as well. For better sensation and clearance, there is flash thermolysis (timing is 1/10 of a second). Superflash (1/100) Microflash (1,1,000) and Picoflash (1/10,000). Pico offers the best sensation option. I would not be happy using the slower timing of flash or superflash thermolysis since the advent of micro and pico.
All the “flashes” will destroy tissue that grows hair IIIIFFFFF performed skillfully.

#8

hi,
i hope i can post this time - i had some problems posting waaay back when i initially started writing this

so, i went with microflash (thanks for encouraging it!) and it went way faster and i have managed to avoid scabs for the most part. my visits have decreased to about once every 3 weeks which feels really good. i’m thinking of moving on with microflash to take care of hair other parts of the body since it seems to work so well.