Hi, I’m a longtime reader, first-time writer. I love this website! I’ve been getting electrolysis for about a year now and so far it’s been very, very effective. Usually my skin is slightly irritated after, but that disappears within a day or so (this is after shopping around for the very best, most skilled woman in the area who also has a fabulous machine). However, I just moved to a new city and tried a new electrologist, and in every place she made an insertion, I have terrible, inflamed whiteheads. I personally think she was working way too high on me and wasn’t angling the needle right; I’ve been to numerous different electrologists so I know skills when I see them. I’ve been swabbing the areas with Witch Hazel like Andrea recommends, but I feel disfigured and ugly. The bumps are not tiny! When will this go away, and what can I do to aid the healing process? Any recommendations most apprecited!
They should go away within a week. They should not normally appear, only as an accident.
Really these pustules are small infections, which could also come from not properly pretreating the area or touching it with unclean hands afterwards. If this is ‘normal’ for this electrologist, then there are many others who won’t leave you like this. Good luck!
You said it yourself, you can feel the difference between a highly skilled practitioner, and someone who is not quite making the insertions well, or has the current up to high.
The good news is your skin can heal to as good as it was in 3 months or less. You should loose the whiteheads in 3 weeks or less.
For post treatment that rebounds the skin as fast as possible, I recommend Tea Trea Oil (melaluca alternifolia) applied to the area overnight (most people would not want to walk around all day with it on) and Aloe Vera Gel for the daytime hours. A good Aloe-Cortisone Cream is good for both healping the skin heal, and reducing the irritation.
Many of my clients say that no one knows they had treatment that day in just 30 minutes to an hour after the appointment is over.
Thanks for the replies-- although the thought of 3 months makes me very sad… It’s been a week now and the whiteheads have turned into nasty dark red scabs. I hope that they do eventually heal. Should I continue to aloe vera even if they’ve scabbed over?
A word to the wise: if you suspect that someone is working too high on you and you hear that terrible sizzle – stop the treatment! I really did know better and should have gotten a patch test like I always do, but I was feeling extra desperate. Also, I have had much better luck w/ healing when someone has invested in one of the newer machines – not the old ones with their manually-turned dials and whatnot. It makes a difference – along, of course, with the most important thing, which is skill, experience, and know-how. Here’s a further question: I want people to avoid these certain people who scar up their clients, but I’m not sure if this forum is one where we can “name names.” What’s the general feeling?
You should continue to aloe until the skin heals. Even after that, it is not a bad idea to continue to aloe the skin. Your skin loves aloe.
Of course, you can name names. That is what this forum is about. All I ask is that if you are going give the names and locations of the electrologists who did bad work on you, we would also like it if you also give information on the electrologists who did GOOD work on you.
The only problem that has been encountered with this type of thing is that many unscrupulous electrologists have utilized this type of forum to slander their competition in the past, but with HairTell being an identity registered forum we have a better chance of finding those trolls and deleting the messages should unsubstantiated slander from malicious parties become evident.
Post your true experiences with confidence that you are helping others to steer clear of a bad experience.