Hello, I used to be a very active member of this form, but in the past few years I have stepped away from the forms but I am back with new questions.
So I have been having quite successful laser treatments on my chest, abs, and back, and I am left with that the laser clinic has said are the hairs that laser will not be effective on due to them being too fine.
So I had my first electrolysis appointment on 12-9-2011 with a practitioner that uses the “Apilus PLATINUM 27 MHz Epilator”.
I am going this route as previously advised by this forum (Thanks for all your years of advice!), I am curious as to if this machine is as “amazing” as my new practitioner makes it out to be and…
Sometimes when she is treating the hairs I feel her pull them out and she says this happens when the hairs are in the telogen phase and essentially have follicles that are too dry to be effectively treated - but that after we achieve the first clearance we should be treating only annogen phased hairs.
You are in good hands on both counts.
If you can get to first clearance, and then settle in on a schedule that removes the hair, as it comes out. This keeps you from working on hairs that have moved into shedding phase, which have less moisture in the follicle as you get closer to telogen. There is no benefit to using additional treatment energy on telogen hairs, just to get them to fall out without traction.
Welcome back, Tom Graham! I clearly remember the pictures of your back. Glad to hear that you had success on your back with LASER. I think you will be very satisfied with an electrolysis cleanup with the great Apilus Platinum.
As far as those dry bulbs go, many electrologists think like your practitioner does. Your remaining hairs will be disabled. I will say that some of those dry bulbs, that look like tiny white grains of salt, do have a popping feel at times. It is okay. There are settings that can be used to lessen this on the Apilus Platinum.
By the way, I really like the term ‘white grains of salt’ to describe these hair structures. That is not my term, but rather, I first heard it from the great electrologists at Dectro International. They are very enthusiastic, very dedicated and very passionate people that give us the best tools, not to mention, support. You have set yourself up for success. May you reach your goal ASAP.
In my opinion, people Dectro (Platinum Apilus manufacturers) will not be very happy with the explanation that Tom Graham has received about the dried roots. At least I would not be in place. When we go to find out that the root of the hair is not the goal but the follicle, and it is moist enough to be successfully treated. ALL, ALL manufacturers of Electrolysis machine agree that hair should never be pulled. Of course, Dectro too.
I can understand that this electrologist is not very skilled in the treatment of telogen hairs, but this does not justify the hairs are pulled. For one thing, those hairs “forced” come back, and true regrowth will be higher than necessary. Tom Graham think the Platinum is not as wonderful as promised, and he writes his experience Hairtell, and all readers will conclude that the Electrolysis is a fraud and that all electrologists are liars.
Well friends! Platinum is actually a very powerful machine, but it does not have the same power as the Virgin of Lourdes. This does not work miracles!
As stated by Michael, the best machine will not operate if the hairs are pulled. Even the most basic machine will have better results, provided that the hairs are NEVER pulled.
Ok TomGraham, what say you? I imagine you can feel the difference between a pop and a pluck/tweeze with no treatment energy. What is your practitioner doing? If it is a tweeze, then perhaps that person subscribes to the notion that it is better to get those when they are growing. If, on the other hand, the more likely situation is that you are feeling just a popping sensation, then the area below the anchor is being treated without going above the anchor, and that is just fine.
Of course, one could increase the treatment energy, or go to double pulses and you can have a higher treatment sensation during all the work, just so those few hairs fall out without a pop.
Since we are not the one treating you, and don’t even know how fat your bulbs are, we really can’t say.
Wow, so much “Gott Allemachtig” in Hairtell today. I don’t know where to begin … maybe I won’t. Oh, what the hell …
In the 20 some hair transplant surgeries I did, I always fiddled with the grafts and very closely scrutinized the follicles. None of them are “dry”. Only the epidermis is actually “dry.” All the tissue, whether in anagen or telogen, is exactly the same … nice and juicy. So, I don’t buy the “dry telogen” nonsense at all … and don’t understand the “pop” or “pluck” (is that what it is?)
Anyway, I have never experienced this popping so I can’t speak to it. Maybe it’s specific to the “Platinum?” I don’t buy the “fat bulb” popping out either. For my money, the telogen hair is “anchored” up near the epidermis and obviously more firmly attached. The telogen “root” is more keratinized and so is the epidermis. (That’s why it hurts more the first time you wax. These firmly attached hairs are anchored exactly at the location of nerve endings in the upper skin.)
The target area is pretty high in the skin, in telogen, so you need to get the current to the area or, well, you know … In the long run, I suppose it doesn’t matter. We all have our opinions, don’t we?
Also, the whole thing is if you are really killing off the follicle who cares if the hair makes a pop or a sizzle. The only thing that matters is at the end of the process: how long did it take, and how much money did you spend? I mean, isn’t that the point?
All electrologist learn that there should be NO TRACTION when a hair is lifted out the follicle after being treated. I heard about one electrologist that will shoot a hair 17 times if necessary in order to get the hair to slide out. I would never do that personally.
We electrologists know that the first clearing gives us many surprises as far as hair structure and hair growth is concerned. In my Sil-Tone VMC days and now with my Platinum, most hairs slide out well, but there are enough white ball poppers added to the mix during that initial clearing. I shoot them with a “die bitch! die bitch!” attitude. Some slide. Some have a little pop. No sizzle allowed, though.
My man client with the very, very hairy back from his neck to his bunny tail near his belt line, finished in 14 months, 80 hours worth. He had one clean up lasting an hour at the 18 month mark and I haven’t seen him for years. Some of his hairs popped out in that initial clearance only. This is something I felt and it did not feel like a tweeze. My point is, he finished in a reasonable time frame and I don’t recall being discouraged by too much regrowth. It all worked whether I was performing MicroFlash or PicoFlash thermolysis.
So again, we end up discussing strategy. We take different paths, but we all have the amazing ability to arrive at the goal close to the same time frame.
Tom, buddy, I think you will be fine, but keep asking questions and talk to your electrologist about any concerns you have, since she can see you in real time. Ask her to show you some hairs laid out on the white sheet, or a white tissue or white piece of paper. Is she moving along at a good speed? Is she doing PicoFlash, MultiPlex or Synchro? Anyone of those thermolysis modes will do a lasting job.
Thank you all for the great feed back! When I meant I feel them pulled out, that sometimes it does feel like a tweezed feeling. I also hear the “sizzle” or “pop” on nearly all the hairs. I think I was just nervous that I might have been getting screwed over when I felt the tweezed hairs, but the overall feedback that I am getting from you all is that it should be ok - so thank you very much!
Here are some pictures of what it is looking like now. I almost have a full clearance, I trimmed the remaining few hairs down after the first pass last week, and I did not take a before picture (unfortunately I totally blanked).
I haven’t had a treatment on my back yet, so I took the best picture I could of my back. but I did take a picture of the hairiest part with a gnarly ingrown sitting there too. My back had by far the best results from laser.
I’m not a pro electrologist but some of the spots on your chest look like they were overtreated to me.
My chest is very prone to develop red spots like that too, moreso than other areas of the body… but I never get large scabs like some of yours appear to have.
What do you pros think? Does that look like overtreatment or is it within the normal range?
At any rate, I’m sure those will all heal up nicely but it might be worth asking your electrologist to experiment with different settings or different probe size.
Thanks Tom, but actually we are not saying that tweezing and sizzling is acceptable. Please discuss this with your electrologist. I use the largest probe possible for these kinds of hairs. I like ballet gold and recently, I have liked the Laurier insulated probe as well. Please re-read the posts above again. Tweezing is not acceptable. Sizzling is not acceptable and indicates that the intensity is too high.
