I wanted to keep a treatment diary so that everyone can see how i am getting along with my electrolysis.I have PCOS and my hirsutism is awful! Im getting my chin sidburns and neck treated with the blend electrolysis. Yesterday was my 1st hour long appointment, the lady only treated some of my face and ive attached the above photos, my skin was abit red afterwards, but when i woke up today i have these horrible white spots and they are bursting 
its a bit sore, ive been applying aloe vera gel and dabbed tea tree oil before i went to sleep last night
I phone up the clinic and told them what had happened they said to apply hot compresses of hot salty water
Im not sure if this is normal, also the pictures will show u the extent of my hairiness its absolutely disgusting
Hi sparkly tears, you do seem to have developed a lot of whiteheads. Much more than would be desirable (none is obviously what we want). The slightly good news is that if it’s just spots, they will go away without any permanent marks if you continue to look after the area.
Did you have a few shorter appointments first? I know we want to get hair gone as fast as possible but it’s important to build confidence in the electrologist and also to give the electrologist a few sessions to optimise settings so you don’t get this kind of reaction.
One would hope that your electrologist takes this feedback on board (you can show her the pics) and adjusts the treatment accordingly so it doesn’t happen again. Some soreness might be inevitable given that the hairs are dense, thick and deeply rooted in this area. I’m sure strong settings had to be used to enable the hair to be treated fully to slide out.
Another thing is, did your electrologist herself clean the area with tea tree oil immediately after treatment? I find that this first cleaning before you leave the clinic is probably the most important in preventing whiteheads. Then, you should apply tea tree oil again yourself later (as you did). Personally, I would not use aloe at this stage. A better choice would be Witch Hazel with is cooling and soothing as well as healing. I apply Witch Hazel immediately after leaving the clinic and it helps the area cool down and redness to subside. I keep using it regularly for the first few days.
Don’t give up hope just yet. Maybe have another shorter appointment and see how it goes. Hopefully your electrologist will listen to your feedback. And if she doesn’t apply tea tree oil, you should do it yourself - this and witch hazel for good aftercare should make things better as well.
Hi stoppit ive only had one appt before the one i had yday, and that was a 15 min tester to see how my skin would react.
My electrologits would wipe the skin with something before and after the procedure im not sure what it was but i know it wasnt tea tree oil because when I asked her about tea tree oil she said she wasnt a fan of the oil and wouldn’t reccommend using it
I havent used witch hazel, is it a witch hazel gel i should use must it be pure witch hazel?
I’ll may be try and give shorter appts a go from now on
Sparkly, the situation is not as bad as you think. The area is very swollen but this is normal when you work one hour in follicles so close together. Little inflammation indicate that the follicles have been treated superficially.
In cases like yours, our doctor prescribed an ointment containing silver sulfadiazine. The clear liquid is oozing from the small burn. Small clear blisters is indicative of epidermal involvement. This is temporary. Not serious. All is well. You will have good results.
As long as the tea tree oil you have doesn’t irritate you (some people are sensitive to it), it’s very recommended. If the electrologist won’t use it on you, you can always apply it yourself before you leave the clinic.
As for the Witch Hazel, I used to use Witch Doctor Witch Hazel Gel, which although wasn’t very pure was really great for cooling and making the redness subside. If this is all you can get, I’m sure it will help. Now I use this Witch Hazel:
http://www.naturallythinking.com/products/Witchazel.html
But again, hopefully your electrologist will change something in the treatment. Maybe she can spread it out a bit more rather than do lots of hairs close together.
I see overtreatment in those pictures. White pustules and lymph fluid are two big clues. Show her these pictures. Tell her you don’t like this and ask her to bring it down or do something different! This shouldn’t happen. No more treatment until your skin is back to normal. I would use lots of COLD aloe vera gel after massaging some witch hazel in with a cotton ball. You will probably scab in 24-48 hours. Use tea tree oil at bedtime with the aloe. Geez. Please give her feedback, okay? The first several treatments are the worse, but they don’t have to be this severe. It will heal, but help it along with good products.
I hear other electrologist say they are not fans of tea tree oil and I can’t understand why. Try tea tree oil for yourself and see what you think. I like to use it on most of my clients in the beginning especially. I put a light coat on and then apply cold aloe vera gel over top of the tea tree oil. It is fine for use. It is expensive, so many electrologists do not invest in this aftercare product. There are some cases where I feel it is not necessary to use the tea tree oil, so I will just send them out with witch hazel and aloe. There are many different skin types, so one has to use their good old fashion common sense about these things. Blanket statements don’t serve clients well. Try it yourself and see what you think. If you don’t like it, then you don’t have to use it. Keep it around for bug bites, acne pustules, cuts, abrasions. Don’t overuse it. It will dry out your skin and prolong redness.
The same thing happened to my chin when I had full beard removed. The whole chin would crust with that fluid. But, i would wash it off in the shower and use tea tree oil. It went away in a day or 2. Later it’s just a memory. If you need pics of mine, I’ll post em for you. J
I think the question here is just how much treatment was done. If you look like that from removal of 100 hairs, that is one thing. If you look like that from removal of 2,000 hairs from your chin area, then that is to be expected, and the tea tree oil, aloe vera applications will help it heal in a day or two.
That is true. In the beginning treatments, for the very challenging work that James performs for male beard removal, it is a trade off between putting up with swelling and redness for three days or so in order to strip an area clear or doing shorter, more scattered appointments over several weeks to months to minimize this kind of skin reaction as we work slowly towards stripping the area of hair.
You had an hour appointment and I still see hair in some places. It looks too rough. Just show your electrologist the pictures and she should be able to re-think her approach next time AFTER you have healed.
It looks over treated ask the lady to turn it down a notch as you dont want to deal with that every time you have treatment.
When you all mention over treatment is that the settings on the machine or the fact that the electrologost tried to treat to many hairs.
To be honest she didnt cover a very large area and id be lucky if it was 100 haris she treated,
Last week she caried out 15 mins of treatment on a few hairs as a tester and even then i got small white pustules but because it was such a small area the skin didnt look bad
im actually very scared now, because I have so much more of the face and neck area to go that if this is how im reacting to an hour of treatment now what will I be like as time goes on. The redness has dissapered 2day and my chin isnt swollen, i still have white pistules in areas but its mostly turned into red scabs:(
My next appt is in a week and a different area of the face is to be treated, so ill have to take pictures along with me to show her
Hi sparkly tears,
In my limited knowledge it may be a combination of both but only your electrologist will know for sure. It looks like there is much more area around that area so I’m sure she can spread treatment much more.
I would wait a bit longer until your skin has healed properly before you go for further treatment.
Sparky, I had over 17000 hairs removed in 30 hours. I will admit, my face and neck were swolen a few days, but after it goes down and my chin stoped leaking, my skin was back to normal and I enjoyed my hairless time. I have zero negative effects on my face that I can see, and I do check. Yours will clear up soon if you keep it clean and I was sure to use tea tree at night. J
Sparkly_Tears, If you were treated in blend, your skin reaction is not all that remarkable for a concentrated amount of work in a small area. If it was done in thermolysis, then more than 100 hairs was done.
It is hard for us to Monday Morning Quarterback your treatment, as we don’t know what your situation and that practitioner’s situation may be.
I can tell you that I have cleared out quite a few women with PCOS hair issues, and although some of them had swelling and some may have temporary plasma leakage, most did not. It all has to do with the number of hairs, how close they are together, and other variables in the treatment and your ability to tolerate treatment, and your goals for the speed of clearance.
Again, I say, use your tea tree oil, aloe vera, and keep it clean and dry, and in a week, you will be right as rain.
Many thanks for your advice James, and thanks to every one else 2 
Skin is less swollen up now, and im following a regime of witch hazel gel and aloe vera along with tea tree oil
took some pictures of the skin now
Keep using your products. It will heal. DO NOT PICK THE SCABS OFF!
In my opinion, this kind of reaction does not have to happen in order to kill hair. We do not want to interrupt peoples lives with this kind of worry. It is not our goal to remove the embarrassing hair in exchange for temporary, but embarrassing scabs. In the beginning treatments, I tell people that it is common to have some swelling, redness and they may have some very small pinprick scabs that last for 5-7 days. With good aftercare and proper use of any modality I am using, MOST clients say they are back to normal by the next day. Some of the difficult cases need that full 5-7 days to get back to normal. I am most pleased when healing falls within these parameters. As we decrease the density and thickness of the hair, healing gets much, much better.
I don’t know what your electrologist is doing, but it might be good strategy to ask her to scatter her work by treating every other hair. Showing her these pictures is a must. If she cares about the people she works on, she will make adjustments. All electrologists get overzealous at times. The important thing we take away from legitimate client complaints about skin reaction is - WE LEARN NOT TO REPEAT. Give her chance to do this a different way and see if anything changes.
I’m glad that you have displayed pics (many people don’t) as it really helps you to get proper feedback, which I’m sure you need.
Dee has pretty much said everything you need to know at this point.
In addition, I would stop the TTOil now and just stick to Witch Hazel and Aloe Vera. Hopefully these scabs will drop off by themselves soon.
The only part that is concerning me is the orangey looking, larger marks towards the centre of your chin. Are these also post treatment? That’s not acceptable at all, to me.
Are you using any other products on your skin while it’s healing? I’m talking about moisturizers, facewashes, etc. You should avoid using anything except witch hazel during the day (it’s less oily than aloe vera in my opinion) and tea tree oil at night. That will help your skin heal faster.
You want to avoid putting anything else on your skin in general until it completely heals each time.
So i went for my 2nd hour long appt yesterday
I told the lady about my skin reaction from the last appt and showed her the pictures ive uploaded
She said it wasnt a normal reaction but was neither uncommon either
I asked if the area had been overtreated she said that was a possibility but turning down the settings would not be effective, however she uderstood that even tho i wanted the hair zapped as soon as possible it was important to get a good balance and not let the skin react the way it has
She said she would use the RF technique instead ( thermolysis?) and see how my skin reacts to it and dot about the area instead of concentrate on one area, in addition to using a gold probe
I definitely found this technique more uncomfortable than the blend, i followed all the aftercare advice but ive still ended up with redness and white pustules 24 hours later,its not as bad as last weeks though, i’m just going to have to accept this is the way my skin reacts lol
here’s sum pictures
Ikes. What brand epilator does she have? Just curious?