I’ve had 2 electrolysis sessions so far, the first one was 1 hour and 45 minutes and the second was 1 hour. The first time I had extreme swelling for the first 4 days and also weeping yellow fluid for the first day, but after my skin healed,there were no indents, just discoloration. The second time the swelling was a lot lot less, and I still had weeping and scabbing, but also less. However, after the second time, i was left with a lot of little indent marks. I’m going to post a picture, which is the best quality i was able to manage with my phone–this picture is 11 days after my last (and second) session. I know the sessions were very long, the hairs were course, and the probe was not insulated. I live in northern Brazil and there are no other options unless I were to take a 2 hour flight to São Paulo every month. I just want to know if you all think my skin will recover 
And if I can continue sessions if I allow more healing time between each one.
I was able to get a picture with better lighting where you can see the indents… I know everyone posts worrying about the same thing but I am totally obsessing over this:(
Weeping yellow fluid after treatment is a sign of over-treatment with high currents. Stop your sessions for 3 weeks or more, let your skin recover before you continue. Communicate with your electrologist for them to adjust current levels. Make your future sessions shorter so you don’t spend 1 hour treating the same small area like the chin which is prone to over-treatment. Avoid clearing all hairs that are close together in same session. And space your sessions at least 2 weeks apart for skin to have time to heal. The dents you see now will improve over time.
Thanks for your reply! I’m definitely not going to do more treatments before healing. I’ll talk to my electrolysist about the current and avoiding clearing, but I think that one of the problems, if not the main problem, is that she’s using an uninsulated probe and I have very sensitive skin. That i have already spoken to her about, but she didn’t know what an insulated probe was and said it’s impossible to get here in Brazil, which I believe because I looked.
Insulated probes are wonderful. Ballet makes them, but of “less than” quality. If insulated probes are not available, your electrologist can still improve her treatments so that over-treatment is mush less likley. Take this slow and do your homework, you have beautiful flawless skin that deserves only the best treatment.
Do you think I should ask her to lower the current addition to spacing out the frequency and avoiding full clearance? What if the current is not to high, and it’s just because of the full clearances, high density of hair, uninsulated probe, and sensitive skin? Could a too-low current actually increase chances of pitting? Sorry it’s a lot of questions 
To all the questions … yes, but it depends. For an experiment, I would wait 'til the skin settles down … and go in for a short treatment and not clear off all the contiguous hairs.
Thanks for your input! Do you think the dents will go away? I’m terrified of the possibility of them being permanent 
I think there will probably be some tiny “remembrance” of this episode. If I have the strength … a possible procedure in the morning that might give me more time (?) … I’ll try to finish up my video on the three danger areas of electrolysis on the face … and how to minimize the risks.
There are just too many people coming forward with the same issues: outer sides of the upper lip, the pad of the chin (your issue) and an area at the side burn. I’m not going to be offering anything that hasn’t been discussed a million times, but maybe if it’s all in one video it might be helpful?
Most likely I won’t be able to complete this … but I sure wish I had the time and strength to complete this one.
Those indents are indeed concerning. I think that in the absence of availability of insulated probes, it might be wiser to slow the the treatment down a little bit by performing blend treatments. It comes down to this, you dont have the tools to do the job ( insulated probes ) with thermolysis, the logical thing is to do the job with the method you do have the tools to do do. Blend generally has much lower thermolysis portion of the current than do pure thermolysis treatments, and stainless uninsulated probes are suited to perform blend.I think honestly the high frequency your current electrologist is using is a bit high intensity and is causing some overtreatment.I’m not sure I can recommend continuing to get thermolysis treatments with uninsulated probes from this practitioner, the results are not favourable.
I’d also be concerned about ensuring that probes used on you are new not reused and opened in front of you.Probes may be somewhat hard to come by of any kind in some more remote parts of the world.Sterile needles are a must for any kind of electrolysis.
I was very confused by your comment until I saw some other posts regarding your health. I’m very sorry to hear about your diagnosis (didn’t see anything saying what it was specifically, but I think I can imagine.) I read a lot of your responses on this website, and I found it endearing how animated you get, I’m sorry you’re feeling so drained right now. I also really respect how dedicated you are to sharing information.
agree 100% …
Thanks for your input. What’s your opinion on the possibility of the dents being permanent? I’m honestly thinking about abandoning the endeavor altogether, because I don’t think the electrologist has the knowledge to change her methods according to my skin’s reaction, and I think she might get defensive or give me less than straightforward answers if I ask her about changing her approach. I had two sessions and after the second one (after the first one there were no dents) if she used ah higher current during the second section and she never actually answered me, she just said that i need to be patient, it was a lot of hair, and it will take time to heal. There are no other electrologists remotely near me.
My instincts are this is going to resolve.Theres too much we dont know about what we are seeing. How long ago and how far apart were the 2 sessions?
We generally dont see extensive scarring from this small amount of treatment, and what I see here is not overly alarming assumng it’s normal wound contraction it may well ( and I think it will) resolve fully. Can I say 100% this is the case, well unfortunately no but the prognosis is likely.
The issue I see with completely discontinuing treatments is, then what are you going to do? Pluck the hairs? Because there is some evidence of significant growth ( the reason you got the treatment in the first place) and of previous lucking. This is one of the problems with treating cases like this, is sometimes the treatment reveals damage done by self removal some time ago.
I would feel her out, and see if she is willing or capable to do some low thermolysis blend treatments. Blend is highly effective ( maybe a little slower) but definitely gets the job done. Sometimes electrologists are perfectly capable of other modalities than what they practice on the daily, so I would not be pessimistic.
So I just finally got in contact with the 1 other electrolysist in the area. The reason I said there was only one is because this other one has no online presence (website, social media), so I didn’t know if she existed, but I guess she does😅 I had tried calling before and it didn’t go through, but this time it did🤷♀️ It’s a weird situation.
Her office is literally next door to the woman who over treated my face. She mentioned that once she had a client come to her with the same problem, and there’s only two of them, so she must have come over from next door. This woman has 5 5 star google reviews, whereas the other woman had no reviews (I found her on instagram). So comparatively better but still not statistically significant? She said that she used the galvanic method but she seemed a little confused by the question before answering (but maybe because of my accent?) I also think the answer may not have been correct, as I think her description of effects on the skin seem more in line with thermolysis. Are all machines capable of using various modalities?
Her prices are exactly the same as the woman next door, so they must have, like, come to an agreement regarding that? She also has the same policy regarding the probe– each client pays for the probe separately at the first session (exactly the same price as the other woman for the probe as well) which they then take home with them, and bring them back for the next session when she DOES sterilize and reuse them. I asked her if i could buy a new probe for each session and she said it’s not necessary but I could.
So I know there are “red flags” but as I said, it’s what I’m working with; and as you said, I don’t really have any other recourse if I choose to desist. This woman seems a lot more open to dialogue, if not as informed as the average electrolysist in developed countries. I hope to hear your opinion about all these little details of my situation. Thanks for taking the time to read about my concerns and predicament.
A “red flag” I see with your new electrologist is their policy and procedure regarding probes. Think about this: when you get an injection from your doctor or dentist, do they encourage you to take the needle home and return it for re-sterilization when you need another injection? Of course not, because mistakes and mixups can happen. Resterilizing probes is a practice that was abandoned by the electrology profession decades ago. Every client should receive a fresh pre-sterilized (from the manufacturer) probe with each treatment.
Yes that was one of the red flags I was referring to😔
summed up in 1 word David, “Brazil”.
My first reply also alluded to this potential issue.
….” Ballet makes them, but of “less than” quality”….
Could you expand on this a bit?
Ballet tapered are not sized correctly … they never got around to perfecting the sizes because, as they told me, “we don’t really sell that many anyway.” For the insulated needles, the ones made by Mike Roy were the best. Other electrologists here will be more energetic to explain. I’m, well, just counting the days.