Hi all,
I have been having electrolysis treatments on my chin since autumn 2020. The hairs are caused by hormonal disbalance and inheritance, and worsened by a try at laser hair removal in spring 2020. I am not seeing much progress with electrolysis and I experienced some scarring after the last electrolysis treatment. I don’t know how to continue. I would be really thankful for any advice, because I am getting quite desperate.
The first practitioner I went to is an experienced dermatologist, but electrolysis is not her main field. The sessions were usually 10 minutes long. She always applied antibiotic powder after the session. I usually had some swelling and some pink dots, but I healed almost completely in 1 week. I believe I visited her three times from October 2020 to March 2021. The breaks between the treatments were 4-7 weeks, due to the pace of my regrowth and pandemic restrictions. Once, I returned after 4 weeks, but I had enough hairs for a 5-minute treatment only.
The dermatologist insisted that we would take a break during summer, because she was afraid that hyperpigmentation might occur. I was desperate for one more treatment before summer, so I tried out a new practitioner, at a beauty salon. She did have a great variety of needles, but only very little experience. She went quite slow and was not very confident with insertions. She applied a numbing cream before the treatment and an antibacterial cream after the treatment. After the treatment, I had severe swelling and dark red dots appeared where the insertions were. I was quite scared about my skin reaction, but fortunately, the dots faded completely after 3 months.
In November 2021, I started to visit the first practitioner, the dermatologist, again. I went there three times, the breaks were about 6 weeks. During the last treatment, she said that the thickest hairs were gone and she couldn’t really help me with the rest, because she didn’t have a needle narrow enough. I was desperate, so in February, I went to the second practitioner again. This time, I informed her beforehand that my skin was sensitive. We agreed that she would use low energy (2 out of 10 on a scale of her machine) and would not treat hairs very close to each other. Again, she used the same numbing cream. I had swelling and from some insertions, a fluid was oozing. Fortunately, the dots were pink this time, not dark red. But some of them were fading very slowly, and after a few weeks, I noticed scars. I am not saying they are terrible, but they are noticeable, especially when the light hits my face from the side. They are still pink and slightly indented.
Now, it’s the end of April. The scars are still there, and the regrowth is quite bad - I don’t think the situation is much better than at the time I started the treatments. The dermatologist won’t treat me in the summer, and because of scars, I am afraid to go to the second practitioner again.
I know that if I’ll trim or pluck, the hairs will grow coarser and longer (it happened every time). But I really don’t want to leave the hairs on my chin until September, so I’m very tempted to do something. If I start plucking now, will it reverse any progress we might have made with electrolysis?
Now, I have doubts about everything - the accuracy of insertions, the energy used, the periodicity of the treatments. What is a normal reaction after electrolysis? Did I wait too long between the treatments? Is it really dangerous to do electrolysis in late spring and summer? Should I continue with electrolysis, and if yes, with which practitioner? Will I be risking more scars if I’ll continue? I was very always careful - did not use make up for a few days after the treatment, applied antibiotic powder, stayed away from the sun, used SPF 50…
I must add that electrolysis is not common in my country and I tried both electrolysis practitioners that were within my travelling distance.
I am adding current photos for illustrations. It’s hard to take a good photo where the indented scars would be , but I’ll try again, if needed.
