Holy herpetology Jossie!
I have to digest “that one” a bit. This time “I’m blow away.” I’m usually good for a fast comeback … not this time! Not that I didn’t wickedly enjoy the comment, mind you.
So take it easy because I still have not finished. This was just a small appetizer compared to what comes next.
The next time someone from AEA asks you to do something for the group, tell them to ask it to Richards and Meharg, Hinkel and Lund, or Bickmore, since their writings seem to have more relevance in acquiring the necessary knowledge to become a super professional.
Although I know very well that you will not. You will return to sacrifice your free time in favor of an associaton that has never deserved a minute of your time, one of your thoughts, not one of your ‘hurt feeling’. Meanwhile I will be mad at you for being too generous and too unconditional to them, and later, of course, I will forget.
And I hope everybody in ‘official positions’ are taking my words personally, because that’s the intention. And for the rest of the group, I also have a little ‘shake rattle’. To me those who are using the ridiculous excuse of the ‘credentials’ to remove the Michael’s books in the list, are as responsible as those who have allowed without protest and / or strongly react.
(Please, before asking me to delete this post, let it be some time so everyone can read and digest it)
To tell you the absolute truth, Jossie, my feelings are never really hurt (much) and when I’m asked to do pretty much anything, I just do it. I look at the “greater good” (my Christian/Socialist/Liberal ethic?) … Furthermore, I do not focus on individual people (because they come and go). The idea and the HOPE lives on …
One criticism of adding the Richards & Meharg book is that it has too much unrelated information (we used to call it the “telephone directory”). I mean why the hell do we have to learn “Kobyashi-Yamada” … when it’s never used here and never even seen. Why (covertly by recommendation) elevate all this twaddle to a learning requirement?
I will say that the book the AEA put together is very good and the CPE test should be based primarily on that … ONLY!
Hinkel, of course, is my “big daddy,” but tons of information is bloody out-of-date. For example the term “rheostat” … is still in the material. Rheostats have not been used since, probably the 1970s? The term “sudoriferous” has been generally replaced (although not universally) by “eccrine” and “apocrine” gland. Dr. Hamilton, dermatologist once said, "Damn Bono, stop saying “sudoriferous!” He said that in 1985! Using and reading these terms invites confusion: just look at the “Electrolysis Exam Secrets” trying to make sense of it all.
Yup, I have seen a on-line sample of the questionnaire.
In question # 3, I had made a mistake because I could have sworn that the apocrine gland is an appendix that develops in the hair follicle. Of course being cold-blooded creatures, we do not need sweat glands that regulate our body temperature. Could this be the reason?
By the way, I have not been able to find the term “sudoriferous” in any English dictionary. Instead the word “odoriferous” does appear. A hybrid term perhaps? I say this because the main function of the apocrine gland is producing pheromones and thus ensure the continuity of the species. So I wonder, is or is not “sudoriferous gland” part of the hair follicle?
Ummm … I think I’ll get some shade (too much sun here today) or better, I’ll hang from a tree branch … figuratively, of course. 
“The greater good” even if it sounds demagogic, is the final customer. However, AEA leaders seem more interested in preserving their old beliefs than in working for the interests and needs of the public, which after all is the one paying… ie, the BOSS.
The motto of enlightened despotism “Everything for the people but without the people” no longer works. What people today want is an Electrolysis that delivers useful benefits: predictable results, a guaranteed TTT, perfect skin at the end, a clean procedure, and with as little pain as possible.
The main challenge we face is the misinformation. How can we make sure that the garbage is out? Setting up the shredder!
The ills are known and the infuriating thing is that the medicine is known as well. AEA leaders should have the courage to prescribe the right measures and explain it to the people. That’s what Michael has been advocating long before I knew him. And in parallel, that is exactly what I tried to convey, at first, my Spanish colleagues, and the rest of the world later.
I see in the new generation that it thinks in a real Electrology, it lives the profession on a daily basis and it has opportunities that the previous generation didn’t have. But the AEA has no magnetism for them.
Jossie, is it any wonder?
Here’s a drawing I found today in a dermatology section on-line. Notice what they say about “anagen phase?” Of course, they might be talking about laser … in which case only anagen hairs can be dispatched when in anagen phase with laser (for reason we already understand).
Of course, this is not the case with electrolysis that can eradicate a hair in any phase of growth: anagen, catagen and telogen (not when the hair is missing from the follicle, of course.)
Still, that “frustratingly idiotic myth” of anagen-only persists.
No, it’s no wonder. And this is the most unfair and frustrating part. They give more credit to doctors who have not seen a follicle in their life that they give to a non-CPE electrologist who has devoted most of his life killing hairs and studying the dynamics of the cycle.
You have targeted a (conveniently deliberate) mistake, but there is another: Observes the position of the base of the follicle in the “return to anagen”. They say: “Dermal papilla moves upward to meet hair follicle once again and hair matrix begins to form new hair”.
Is it not reported that the dermal papilla moves down during new anagen?
Amazing that there is still so much not fully understood about that “simple” hair and follicle! The complexity of life is stunning.
I remember saying that the papilla is a “moving target” and that’s probably one of the more important things I’ve ever said … whether it goes “upward” to meet up with the matrix and then “goes down,” only confirms the movement of the papilla. Then again, some biologists postulate that the anagen follicle “finds” a new papilla.
There is interplay between these many structures for sure … With your successful technique, Jossie, you are killing off all of the structures and it does not matter where they are in the grwoth cycle! And, that’s the only truth that matters!
Jossie,
Once I started doing hair transplant surgery (cutting follicles and re-planting them), was when I really started questioning drawings of follicles. Imagine a heart surgeon that has never seen an actual heart … just drawings of a heart? Would that work?
Almost none of us have ever seen real hair follicles, and had the opportunity to tug on them (to see where they are held in), and insert a needle into them under magnification. If we had this opportunity … all silly questions would be OVER!
But that’s not what we have! Most drawings … even new ones … are RE-DRAWINGS of older drawings; and the myths continue on and on. I’m pretty sure that the drawing in Hinkel’s book (1968) caused us to make the wrong conclusions about follicles, and consequently we adapted techniques based on the DRAWING! We assumed the papilla “stayed put.” And then there was all this “dermal cord” business, and “can’t kill a hair in telogen” shit. We examined a DRAWING not a REAL follicle.
Hinkel’s book still contains the incorrect drawing and YES it is used as a key reference for the CPE exam: after all Hinkel’s book is still the main reference; just wrong in a bunch of places. Yep, still confusing students after all these decades!
Anyway, I got fed up trying to understand the drawing that was in William Montagna’s (and Hinkel’s) book. Montagna was/is THE skin and hair authority.
NOT being afraid to look stupid … I wrote to Dr. Montagna and said, “I don’t get it!” The following is his actual letter to me (excerpt) … I saved it!
25-years ago … and we are sill making the same “friggin’” mistakes.
August 1990
Dear Mr. Bono
" … In all of the stages of the cycle, the dermal papilla is never far from the field of action. In the diagram of the three main states, the catagen stage shown as not yet released the papilla. In the diagram on page 42 [Hinkel’s book], the papilla was left out of the drawing. I must have been dozing when I checked the drawing for accuracy. All that remains of the bulb cells is the mass fat which forms the hair germ … "
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oh, yes, I think they called it: “Ghost space” or something similar.
Michael, there are two things I would like to know.
The first is related to electrologists operating in California. If I am not mistaken, Hinkel’s school was located in this state, what percentage of members who attended this school would you say are currently belonging to the AEA?
And second, what you think of this statement?: “Stem cells at rest in the bulge area are more heat-resistant than progenitor cells and are therefore harder to destroy.”
Should we really comment on the quoted statement?
But i think i have already read that statement some time ago.
The stem cell statement is fascinating! I have no idea.
Hey Jossie,
All members of the California Association are automatically members of the AEA: it’s called affiliation. Here they are:
http://www.electrologycalifornia.org/
I was going to say some nice things about education in California and the high level of electrology … until I watched a video by a stupid idiot! Take a look at the second video; her “interview.”
Seriously, she had a 50% chance to get it right … and she got it WRONG. She says, “DC electrolysis causes ACID in the follicle and ‘hurts like hell’.” I wonder where this “black widow” went to school, and how she managed to pass the State Board exam?
This woman exemplifies everything that is wrong with this profession.
Since the AEA bases its recommendations on such statements, yes, I think it is relevant and appropriate to comment on them.
Does this mean that you have not noticed any difference in heat resistance between stem cells and progenitor cells? the truth is that I have not noticed a difference either.
Too bad the author of this curious statement does not specify the causes of this hypothetical resistance.
I think in this case continuing education should be replaced by basic education.
“As a member of the American Electrology Association and the Electrologist Association of California she finds continuing education an essential part of practicing Permanent Hair Removal as an Allied Health Field.”
Auch meine Waffe!
Me, too, of course.
And i must admit that i do not feel able to heat up isolated cells in the tissue. So i do not feel able to tell any difference at all. Aside of that i always thought that the conditions around an active epilation tip are sufficient to kill everything except Archaebacteriae - those strange bacteriae which survive only at 150° C under anaerobic conditions in suboceancic hydrothermal smokers (and, btw, don’t have any chance to survive in the conditions we prefer for life).
Which means i find that statement on the stem cells and their resistivity ridiculous.
Please let me again mention - mainly for the non specialists who might read this - that the pictures on the hair structure shown above show old ideas of hair growth. These ideas are not evidence controlled, and, foremost, they conflict with the fairly recent findings on hair growth: the main region of diffentiation is a bulge around the anchor, and the cells move downward to the papilla in their development cycle into horn cells where they simply attach to the papilla and form the hair.
A process which will in a very natural and obvious way extend way extend into the processes of the formation of related structures like fingernails or feathers. Fascinating.
So that “campfire” like activity center under the active papilla is and must be pure phantasy.
Genau! Ich hoffe Sie lachen. Ja, wir haben uns ein schoenes Geheimnis!
Yes, I agree, this is the only thing that matters, especially for the customer.
However, I’m looking for answers, and when someone says stem cells located in the bulge are more heat-resistant than progenitor cells, I need some scientific explanation to support this statement (even if who says such a thing is an authority as the Dr. Douillon).
Like you, Michael, I question everything, including my own conclusions, for that reason, a claim with no other purpose than to keep alive an old hypothesis in order to satisfy the ego of a large part of the group (the “only anagen” school) and which contradicts the results of the other half of the group (including you and me), represents nothing at all for me.