Experts am I doing it right? DIYer

[color:#330099][b]Hi, I have read many posts on Hairtell but I am new to actually posting. About a Year ago I started practicing on myself with the One Touch but found it annoying because it takes a long time and kept beeping at me (I think I have salty skin…). I have moved on to the Apilus Senior II now and am only doing thermolysis on myself (Don’t think I could manage holding the rod and everything else). After reading on the internet… I am conflicted about its ability to kill hairs since I am not formally trained (my regular electrologist has allowed me to practice on her and she says my insertions are better than most professionals who have worked on her). Most information online says the Blend method is more effective for people starting out since the lye/chemical rxn is distributed more in the follicle than the heat.

My questions are:

If the hair slides out after a couple beeps with thermolysis is it still possible for me to be doing it wrong and get a higher percentage of regrowth compared to a professional?

Will the hair slide out like it was treated properly if the HF misses the papilla?[/b][/color]

Thanks for any help!

Also, was wondering if it is possible to scar your skin but for it not to show up for 3 to 7 years?.. I read that recently but don’t know… So far I have no scars and want to keep it that way…

The scarring *could happen that way, only if you don’t notice it. Usually the scarring process is immediate and the pink around the area that you’ve treated (which can sometimes last for weeks) conceals the scar. In your case i don’t think you need to worry about pitting since it seems like you’ve already done electrolysis, but a slight change in pigmentation that is circular can last forever. Use caution when applying heat.

Thermolysis is more of an exact process than galvanic in that it requires a better insertion to kill the hair. Take a look at a couple of pictures that describe thermolysis’ damage radius at the end of the needle and you’ll have an idea at the surrounding area that you’ve blasted. I guess it could still be possible for the hair to slide out since you are indeed near the target area. I’d start at the lowest setting that could give you results and work towards something that you’re comfortable with. With me and my old machines i’ve found 3 to be satisfactory, the applied thermolysis is under .5 - .7 seconds and the hair comes out dead.

Just a tip, if you want to do galvanic you can hold the rod tucked in between the back of your knee and perform that way. That way both hands are still free.

I’ve also heard of an armpit method… fat chance on getting my to shave my armpits though!

[color:#006600]Hey Electroninja,

Pros will most likely jump in on this thread, but here’s my take:

Will the hair slide out like it was treated properly if the HF misses the papilla?

If you miss the papilla, you probably won’t get the bulb on the end. You know, the big black ball at the base of the hair? That comes out when you hit the papilla correctly. And although an intact sheath does a offer some resistance upon plucking, the real anchor is at the papilla. So an intact papilla won’t come out so easily.

If you hit a hair pretty decently and you get some sheath coming out with it, but no bulb, -and the hair still slides out easily. A few things could be happening:

  1. The bulb was freed from the papilla decently and it just couldn’t stay intact as you were tweezing it out (i.e. it left the base bulb behind). It stayed somewhere in the follical tunnel because there was too much uncleared sheath in the way obstructing it’s free movement as it was sliding out of the tunnel hanging on to the end of the shaft being tweezed. Because it’s fatter than the shaft. And this is usually seen as a black dot still way in there after tweezing, the bulb sitting there in the follical halfway out. Or,

  2. The hair may not be in the optimum growth mode, has lost its bulb already, and is coming out easily because really, other than sheath, there’s nothing to anchor it. So the sense upon hitting and tweezing these types is a sense of failure to get a good hit. It feels like a miss of sorts.

If your insertions have been observed, you probably are doing okay. You just have to really watch depth. Depth is a big part of beginner errors. Most beginning DIYer’s go too deep. You have to really watch the amount of needle going under the surface, the ever so slight feeling of hitting the base of the follical, and the slight, slight dimpling that happens once you hit the bottom of the follical.

You know, pluck a good healthy hair out and hold it up to your needle to learn guaging depth.

I don’t know what your hitting technique is, but just for the record, I do three descending hits on bigger hairs, two descending hits on medium and small hairs, and keep it at one for the really fine stuff.

Some do ascending hits starting at the bottom of the follical first then “backing out”, but I think this dessicates (partially dries out) the upper areas too much before you can get to them directly.

If you’re doing Thermolysis, and you just keep it at one hit per hair, it’s going to get rough, meaning dicey extractions sliding out upon tweezing less than ideally. And actually, you’re going to miss alot of hair bulge cells up the street from the papilla’s neighborhood. This will result in a fine, vellus type regrowth later on coming out of those unhit hair cell bulges. You may know that already? I was a beginner once just like you, and I’ve always kept it at 2-3 hits per follical. Of course, with many exceptions.

Hope this helped. And cheers on the Senior II, that machine will serve you well. [/color]

Ayeyaiyai, not sure if all the pro’s would agree with some of your statements there Mantaray.

Page 10:
http://bonoelectrolysis.com/English%20GUIDE.pdf

http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/86964/Michael_Bono.html#Post86964

http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/102969/1.html
http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/103257/Re_More_on_transplants.html

My first hand experience with performing electrolysis is minuet (and also with an insulated needle) but what I have learnt in treating untouched hairs (no hair removal in at least one year) is that if the the treatment energies are ‘right’, meaning the hair can epilate* in one or two correctly placed pulses of current, and if it doesn’t… it means you targeted the incorrect area… and nearly always that’s because the upper portion of the follicle was not treated because it’s hard to go shallow (for a newbie).

*By epilate, I mean slides out effortlessly using fingers after treatment. No gentle extraction with tweezers.

[b][color:#330099]@ilikeDIY
Thanks for the tips on how to use the rod without hands… I didn’t know if it would work or not but I think I will try it because I get electrolysis professionally done on my face and it seems to only like the Blend method…
Yes, that is what I did… Started with low settings and worked up…
@Mantaray
The whole bulb is coming out each time (except for the few that are in telogen which I can tell the difference) because I don’t want to just pluck I wait for it to give up. Wouldn’t going past the follicle hurt and therefore you would know you were doing something wrong? Yeah, I think I may try descending hits since when I do the ascending ones I fear I am going to accidently push the peddle when the probe is to close to the surface… I usually do three but that is because right now I am working on my upper thigh bikini area and the hairs are very thick, deep, and dark… Thanks for your reply
@stoppit&tidyup
Thanks for the links… It seems from what Michael Bono is saying that hair can be removed with no resistance but the follicle could still later on produce a hair (but thin hair… ). I used a pro tec needle (if that means anything)… All the hair where I am treating has either never been removed by other means or its been only once years ago (tried waxing… never again… talk about pain… electrolysis is nothing compared). I know that the hairs I am treating would NEVER come out easy on their own so I think that is helpful for me… I think it is a marvelous miracle to see them just come out with no pain! I will try using only fingers seems interesting but I think the hair might have to be longer for that to work in my case.

Does anyone know… Should the thermolysis settings be inversely related if I raise the H.F.% should the time(seconds) go down usually? I don’t want to over treat myself but I have some tough hairs (not just me but seen my electrologist trying to kill them too).

Thanks All[/color][/b]

MAntaray, i would LOVE to see a video example of this method. Ever consider posting a you tube video ?

I just read a bit thru this thread … responding to a few of Mantaray’s comments:

“the real anchor is at the papilla.” … 100% incorrect and a common “error of observation” (that lasted, oh, about 75 years). Think about this: how is it that a telogen hair (with no papilla) seems STUCK to the follicle? So, where’s the “anchor?”)

“an intact papilla won’t come out so easily”. … papillae never “come out.” (in my career I have seen papilla “come out” probably 2 or 3 times.)

“If you hit a hair pretty decently and you get some sheath coming out with it, but no bulb … “ (bulbs epilate easily, even with a tweeze).

You are probably doing okay work, but try not “re-inventing the wheel.” Get some books and consult a working electrologist. Oh, and please don’t invent “new electrology myths,” we have enough already! Tip: get your focus OFF the papilla!

Zap on!

Oh, make that: "get your focus off the papilla AND the bulb!

Another “hint”:

The “hair root” looks like a plant (sort of a garlic or an onion … or any other plant that produces a bulb) … but it’s NOT! The whole “root” idea came from unscientific observation, and it’s incorrect. If you go by instincts alone and uncorroborated observation, you will get this wrong every time.

Okay, over and out. I now have to make breakfast, and then torture Brendan for the rest of the day. He’s going into the Marines, and if he can do electrolysis … well, “boot camp” is going to be a “breeze!” (Even with local, this is no easy matter!)

(Almost half done already: 5 hours into this final clearance … I will post the finished photos … of course thru Jossie.)

(here I go again … I promise to shut up after this):

Idea!!!

Why doesn’t the AEA, or the other associations, OPEN their meeting to EVERYONE! Not just electrologists, but anyone who is interested.

This would be wonderful for customers, people considering entering the field, and DIYers too. Yes, bring in “new blood!” New folks could meet real electrologists and see all the new equipment! I mean, I go to the plastic surgery convention every year and I’m not a surgeon!

Why NOT??? Are you listening AEA??

Please Michael, NEVER shut up.

[color:#666666]I just read a bit thru this thread … responding to a few of Mantaray’s comments:

“the real anchor is at the papilla.” … 100% incorrect and a common “error of observation” (that lasted, oh, about 75 years). Think about this: how is it that a telogen hair (with no papilla) seems STUCK to the follicle? So, where’s the “anchor?”)

“an intact papilla won’t come out so easily”. … papillae never “come out.” (in my career I have seen papilla “come out” probably 2 or 3 times.)

“If you hit a hair pretty decently and you get some sheath coming out with it, but no bulb … “ (bulbs epilate easily, even with a tweeze).

You are probably doing okay work, but try not “re-inventing the wheel.” Get some books and consult a working electrologist. Oh, and please don’t invent “new electrology myths,” [/color]

[color:#000099]
Okay Mike, let’s go back over this. Right now, pluck 10 hairs from your upper thigh. Now tell me how many have bulbs attached. Big healthy bulbs. … I’m waiting …Okay… Bulbs only rarely comeout with just tweezing.

Okay Mike, When you go to pluck a hair, what gives you the painful sensation? The nerves right? Where are the nerves? On the sheath? Or near the papilla. The Papilla right? So when you successfu hit a hair, it’s the release at the papilla that will be a good determinate.

Okay, this was meant to read an intact papilla-bulb complex won’t release it’s bulb so easily. Maybe I was typing too fast. Anybody with my amount and level of biological education knows full well the papilla is a hardwired structure that doesn’t come out, -normally. But if minutiae is in order, maybe I can jump all over your case due to your extreme “Anti-theist” in your signiture line, then watching you spout God this…, God that… all the time. I’m a Catholic, a devout one, and a smart one, you bet I have more to say about Hitchens. You bet.

Okay, the telogen hair is being held in place by hair sheath, umm…so what ?? Is it being anchored in as sturdily as when growing attached to the papilla? Seems to me they just fall out after a given time.

I answered his particular question, I didn’t create any myths. Electrology isn’t rocket science. And it’s not “risky & hard”, it just takes decent equipment and a little practice to wire the hand movements. Driving drunk is risky and hard, this is merely placing a little wire in a follical. ~~ Oh gosh, too much current, oh look, a miniscule little red spot, my dear, what to do…~~ [/color]

On the thighs I suppose bulbs don’t come out easily … other areas are different. Bulbs tweeze easily.

The follicle is totally surrounded by nerves, the papilla is a blood vessel and there are lots of them all over the “papillary layer.” I don’t think a “release at the papilla” is any good determinate.

Keep going, you are on the right track. Sorry I got you in a “snit” over good old Hitchens. However, “snitting” is good for everyone, now and then.

Mantaray, do you ever wonder why deep follicles treatment is less painful than superficial follicles? I think here you have the answer, the nerve endings are better organized around follicle shallow, hence to destroy the area which will destroy any possibility of regrowth, you have to feel pain (unless you are using some type of anesthetic) . When you feel a special pain peak is when you will succeed because you will have reached the anchorage zone, also bulge level, level of pili muscle insertion. This is YOUR GOAL, and this is the right place where are located the free nerve endings, which embrace the hair follicle (in yellow)

I think the black bit, that can sometimes be seen, when a treated hair has been removed is the beginnings of another hair that can’t be seen yet. ie One that is growing underneath the visible one.
I don’t think later stage hairs have a bulb as can be seen as with an anagen hair, I think it shrinks once the papilla has detached. They do have what I would guess is a dried up shrunken remnant of the root sheath. That’s what the grain of salt is me thinks. That little puppy will hang on in there quite effectively. I’d imagine that bond is more effective again when the root sheath is healthy wet and new.
I can’t imagine that a connection to a blood supply would be half as effective at holding a hair in place. Just imagine how tiny that blood supply must be…Surely that bond between hair and follicle would take the collective effect of the root sheath cells binding with the scaly outer surface of the hair. Look at a magnified human hair and you’ll see what I mean. The hair has scales that act like barbs preventing it from being pulled free.
If you pluck ten hairs from your thigh you won’t see many bulbs simply because only a small % of the hairs will be in anagen. Do this with beard hairs and it will likely be a different story, it’ll probably hurt more too.
I think the “given time” is time enough for the hair to travel to just inside the epidermis where it will eventually fall out as the cells it ends up attached to work their way upwards before they too eventually shed/flake off. When it separates from the papilla and the root sheath is still wet and healthy there is still a strong bond.
I dare say there’s loads of people with plenty to say to Hitchens now that he’s dead but I never witnessed anyone do it successfully in his presence when he was alive, the man was an academic warrior.
I wouldn’t particularly want to be associated with the catholic church myself. They are responsible for way too much misery in the world. Dissing/banning Contraception, encouraging families already in poverty to have loads of kids, countless cases of priests fiddling with kids… not an association I’d be making.
Drunk driving is easy by the way it just takes any good catholic before confession with an adequate supply of alcohol and off you go. Not everyone can perform electrolysis and unfortunately not everyone can get past all the rubbish that passes as fact where hair removal is concerned.
I’m not responsible for any of the above ramblings, my friend Jack Daniels made me say it all. I won’t be driving though so don’t worry, I’m already home :wink:

Is it just me and Jack or does anyone else think that the No No hair remover looks like a giant USB memory stick :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

exactly like a big usb stick. i like the slick wording of these products they sell on promo channels. A sucker born every second and two to take em.

[b][color:#330099]Well, I guess I will keep on treating the hairs and if in a year or two they still come back I will know I did something wrong… In the mean time I am very happy they are gone! And at least I am doing something worth while and NOT like the no no and such…

@depilacionelectr
It is nice to see this picture with numerous hairs in one follicle… I have been blessed with many of these…[/color][/b]

Lots of great posts here; nice to see them. I suppose my “angst” manifested from a week of “academic backsliding?” (My opinion only.)

I got a call from someone that insisted that removing a tiny facial capillary would result in the immediate DEATH of the client (from a clot moving into the brain or heart). In a sense she was trying to be helpful, and said that I would be sued because someone had read my book and followed my instructions. She insisted I take my book off the market immediately … or else!

I got an email from a person that said that local anesthetic cannot be used in electrolysis: it doesn’t work and cannot be used in an area more than a square inch. Besides, the patient would die from it. (People, please look into what surgeons do when they use local for lipo-suction! I mean, this is liters of local!) Instead of asking questions, this person only wanted to condemn … and it’s always been like this! Maybe they might want to look into the 30 years we (surgeon a few other doctors) have spent producing a protocol for using local.

Indeed, I have nearly finished a book on this subject but it will never be published (maybe after I’m dead?). I published the telangiectasia book in 1991 and the technique is still being fought by the “powers that be” in the electrolysis world (at the same time estheticians are doing this as a commonplace treatment.) I’m still getting threats from “our industry!” Sometimes, I wish I’d never done it. Writing does cause you grief.

(You know, there are LOTS of negative things that can justifiably be said about me. But, I’m not a stupid or wreckless guy. I don’t do things without years of research and absolute care for the patient. Indeed, I “drive all my doctor friends crazy” And, hit the books on every issue.)

Then there was the post about DC (electrolysis/blend) causing convulsions and, therefore, being dangerous. The (recent) talk about HF-thermolysis causing blindness and tumors in the brain. And, of course, that fool near me that says DC causes liver and kidney failure because it puts either lye or ACID in the blood (she wasn’t sure which one).

Add to all this the unending “war” about the ability to kill telogen hairs. “New on the scene,” is stated on the new Dectro DVD where the lecturer says, “Catagen hairs are difficult to treat, because they are both too shallow AND too deep!” WHAT? So, we now have a NEW “electrology myth! Just freakin’ perfect!

So, I was probably not so diplomatic to Mantaray regarding the “anchor.” I am sorry about that. After all, this is a dedicated person who is trying … and I believe will come out as a “leader” in this silly industry. I will always “be there” for you.

As far as “God?” Well in the vernacular, people often say “Oh my God.” This is so common, that we abbreviate it as “OMG.” My use of “God” was not intended to insult my religious friends. There are PLENTY of atheists that don’t garner much notice: Woody Allen, Kevin Bacon, Kathy Griffin, Hugh Hefner. Ernest Hemmingway, Bruce Lee, John Lennon … even Barry Manilow! I might quote them, but that doesn’t mean I AM them.

Still, I’m an unabashed Anglophile and Hitchens is admired. I especially like his irreverence, underlying haughtiness (kind of through a “Jack Daniels veil”), and unwillingness to be swallowed up by the “common mundane ‘American’ culture.” (You can almost see the cigarette stains on his fingers.) This is “English at it’s best!”

He once said, “You Americans fail to recognize your ‘betters’.” After that, I was hooked! What a wonderful, brilliant “ass!” I like him because he “pisses people off” and makes them (eventually) THINK! See, (unlike most Americans) I don’t want to vote for a president that “I can have a beer with!” Hitches “pisses me off” too, and that’s what I like! You are not going to progress in thought if you are always comfortable! Continuous reinforcement of your beliefs is intellectual death!

Anyway, my views on most things are not predictable and certainly not easily simplified. Thanks for the dialogue!