Some people have to demonstrate that they know more than is relevant to the conservation for their own ego. Yes, lefty, gives lots of anatomy and doctor lectures.
Being that your skin is adjusting to electrolysis treatments and the hairs are reducing in size and amount, you should have less of a skin reaction. It’s a pretty common observation.
Dee
Hi all, had my 12th one hour session yesterday of electrolysis on face - thank god! its been three weeks sinse my last treatment as my therapist was on holiday and I was defo ready by week two for a treatment. Anyway I would say she has cleared the main area. She did sides of face, under neck, lower and upper lip - but only 10 minutes were spent on lower and upper lip (too painful!). I have the usual tiny scabbing on cheeks nothing major though and a few very tiny scabs under lip area. So far so good. Really pleased that after three weeks she could treat nearly all my face in the one hour. 
This is probably a question for Dee or James, - was thinking of starting electrolysis on belly area, around belly button and about 3 inches up, 2 inches across. Do you find its easier to get first clearence on that type of area and do we usually get quicker results on body than on the face? Remember I dont have hormonal problems I just inherited my dark hair! 
Eventually I would like the longer hairs there to be gone but the finer hairs just thinned out so it looks natural with rest of stomach. any comments appreciated.
Yes, body work goes faster than facial work – IF You Can Get To Full Clearance!
Leo can you provide pictures I would love to see your progress. I’m getting the same areas treated.
Roma I have another treatment on Wednesday - once scabs have gone I will try to take some pictures then, just need to learn how to post them!!! Oh and by the way five days and all scabs gone from previous session.
13th 1 hour session on sides of face, neck,and 15 minutes prob spent on upper and lower lip area. Its been a week since my last session. Going to go every two weeks from now onwards. My therapist said that she has even dropped a needle size as the hairs are finer now. Give me a week for my skin to clear and I will try to do photos
All sounds good at month 4.5. We’ll look forward to photo’s. What modality is being used, Leo?
You are definitely wrong on a few areas. FDA is a Governmental agency, therefore, their rules have the weight of LAW in ALL STATES. I don’t believe you believe they pass laws for only a few states. " Supervise" has developed a NEW DEFINITION by electrology people for their convenience just like “PERMANENT REDUCTION”.
There STILL is NO ACCREDITED AGENCY THAT ISSUES CERTIFICATION for laser operators and no malpractice insurance for them either. What they do vis SURGERY and they are not allowed to practice medicine or surgery without a license. You an ignore this all you want , however, there has already been a one hour show on ABC TV with Dianne Sawyer discussing this and a second TV show on ABC by the son of the former GOV of NY, Andrew Cuomo, NOW ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NY STATE. They used hidden cameras to go into spas and electrology offices . There has been a few deaths caused by pain numbing agents who used saran wrap on a large area. Patients absorb too much of the drug and it causes irregular heartbeats (Drs use a heart monitor when they do this), there have been comas ,seizures and other things . All available on FDA web site. You can ignore it or learn something. Go visit FDA site. Sorry for your patients but YOU ARE WRONG.
Which post of this thread are you responging to? Using the “quote” feature would be helpful.
Hello Dee,
I am here looking for a professional advice. I am a 27 year old male, suffering from unwanted facial hair. To be precise weird upper cheek hair and a couple on the side of the nose.
I am planning on a Laser/Electrolysis to get rid of this hair.
I am willing to take all the pain of electrolysis and all the time needed. But my only big concern is the possibility of PERMANENT scars/scabs on the face. How big is the probability for such a thing to happen, and if it happens is there a cure, can i still get rid of those scars.
Thanks a lot in advance.
You already posted this in a new thread, which is the right thing to do. I replied there and I’ms ure Dee will soon as well.
It is rare to get permanent skin damage from electrolysis. It is normal to have temporary skin reaction after a session, especially in the begining until your skin acclimates to the electrolysis process. I think these terms are misunderstood all too frequently and we are always reinforcing the vast differences between the two.
Scarring results from overtreatment. That means, the electrologist or the well-meaning do-it-yourselfer’s, treats individual hair follicles beyond what is needed to permanently affect the hair follicle. You will know if you are overtreated because your skin will react and look very angry. It will take more than a week for you to heal, most likely. You will have no desire to go out and socialize. You will look like a big pizza face. How else can I describe this? If this happens once, you will heal, but you shouldn’t repeat this kind of treatment over and over again or you may have some scarring way down the road. The electrologist should be shown what she/he did and then they should immediately correct it. Insertions need to be perfect. Timing needs to be perfect. Intensity needs to be perfect. Probe size needs to match the structure of hair being treated. Aftercare needs to be followed by the client. General aftercare instructions should be given to the client verbally or in writing. THe electrologist should educate you and remind you along the way. Most importantly, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND what constitutes good electrolysis care. We can help you figure that out as you go along. Sometimes this is hard to do over the internet, but we frequently ask for pictures, modality used, sensation, healing time, type of epilator and we like to know if all this is being done in a hygenic office where the practitioner adheres to principles of sterilization and disinfection. Hand washing, the use of pre-packaged, disposable sterile probes is a biggy, along with sterilization of the tweezers/forceps. You should ask to see a dry heat sterizer or an autoclave. Biologiscal moniters should be used once a month to test if these devices are working properly.
Temporary skin side effects include redness or pinkness, mild swelling and sometimes, a few pinpoint scabs. These temporary side effects last anywhere from several minutes to seven days. My head just about explodes when a worried client reports that she/he had some tiny red bumps for seven hours after a treatment. This is incredulous. Electrologists are in the business of destroying tissue that nourishes hair. When the skin is disturbed, one has TEMPORARY side effects related to the inflammation process. The body goes into action to heal these microscopic wounds. Redness, swelling and sometimes pinpoint scabbing is how the body SHOULD react to an invader. No one expects to have plastic surgery to lift their eyelids and come home looking as if nothing happened. No one expects to have laser hair reduction and leave looking as nothing happened. Same goes for electrolysis. We are distrubing the peaceful environment of the skin and natures responds to repair.
I know you understand all of the above because you are an adult man, but I felt the need to spell out the differences between the rare occurence of scarring as oppossed to the normal and expected occurence of redness, swelling and sometimes scabbing.
Not all electrologists are up on their game and they really should update their equipment and vision wear and re-train on the better epilator options available in this century. That’s where you come in and you really should participate in doing some detective work. You will be doing yourself a favor if you see as many electrologists as you can and COMPARE sensation factors, healing factors and hygenic factors. Get short treatments. Go home and see how you heal. If you the consumer puts effort into finding a PROFESSIONAL electrologist who loves “killing” hair properly, then you will be a very, very happy man. DO not expect instant success. It takes 9-12 months of properly spaced appointments to get through the hair growth cycles, but then after that, it is shorter nit picky cleanups. You have more hair in an area than you think. Stay patient and loyal to a schedule. Ask your questions here and we will do our best to guide you through the first six months. After that time, you should understand how all this works and then you can fly on your own.
Dee
Hi just an update on my treatment. Most of growth from last treatment is on jawline. Is the hair in this area harder to treat? On saturday I had 14th 1 hour session on face. She did sides of face, neck and a few from upper and lower lip. Today my face went really red, although my therapist said she didnt alter the settngs. one day after treatment I noticed more scabs than usual not worse but a lot more. The only thing I can put this down to is that I used a new facial product on my Skin for one week prior to my electrolysis treatment - a product which exfoliates the skin, this product is called M2 Skin technoligies if anyone has heard of it. Must have made my skin more sensitive! So wont use again! Still a few hairs remaining under neck but I always notice that - maybe its because I am looking really closely and in bright light so those finer hairs seem worse. As my skin had gone really red she stopped so I asked her to have ago above belly button area, which I am aiming to tackle next. She did about 15 minutes on belly. Going back in about a week and half.
Sounds like your skin was sensitive this time due to the exfoliation stuff. She’s probably focusing on getting the thicker hairs, with the intention to refine her work later to get the medium and finer, longer hairs.
I hope she can see hair that is finer and longer. Did you tell her that you want those hair structures treated as well?
I will be more specific next time and ask her to really have a good session at treating the hair under the neck area, although during the last session I think she gave up sooner as my skin went very bumpy and red. Wont use that product again!
Hi had another session today. 15th session but only 45 minutes. My technision used Blend this time as she wanted to see how my skin would react - normally uses thermolysis and I always get the scabs. well she concentrated on the neck area as I asked her to and there are still some hairs remaining as its a much slower method. I am quite happy for her to continue using blend just worried I wont get full clearence each time I go. I am booked in this weekend again, which I wanted her to do belly area, but seeing that I am left with no marks what so ever on my face and hair remaining I would like her to finish off my face. Is blend method a kinder treatment to the skin? Keep you posted when I have been on saturday.
Leo based on personal experience I’ve had more skin reaction with blend than thermolysis. I had blend done on my stomach and had scabs for days, and redness that wouldn’t go for week. We switched to termolysis, and my skin usually recovers by the next treatments which is once every week. But for me my stomach takes longer to recover than my sideburns, and cheeks.
When thermolysis is used correctly, with the best epilators - there is no scabbing. No method (modality) of electrolysis is kinder than the other if it is used incorrectly. They ALL can work well with a good skin outcome or they can all cause skin manifestations when performed with less than perfect technique and skills.