Additionally, tombstones are a bit more common on the body … especially on young male clients i.e., super-fast hair growth cycling.
(BTW, “male” is an adjective … but then, that ain’t how we all use the term these days.)
Yes, that article is absolute poo poo!
It’s like the author just woke up one day and pulled this “information” from his butt. This is what we call a lazy researcher. “Authorities” like these cause much angst and confusion for the hair consumer and for the electrologists that know better. We spend valuable time debunking the bunk on the Internet and it is made worse if one has all the scientist ABC initials behind their name.
Just judging from my personal experience, the article makes sense.
I haven’t had ingrown hairs on my upper arms, but every hair I have had treated with electrolysis on my forearms and elbow-area, have hyper-pigmented and inflamed into bumps.
The latest area I had treated, which I took pictures of and put in this thread, was perfectly normal prior to treatment.
I used this area as a test spot.
Since then, and its been at least a month, the spot has become bumpy and hyper-pigmented.
My electrologist was able to tweeze out hairs stuck inside, which were causing the irritation.
This seems to corroborate the Medscape article’s findings that speak of the consequences of transfollicular penetration.
This happened on my bicep as well, when my electrologist used high energy settings.
I was left with intense PIH and dead hairs that required tweezing.
I realize that not everyone has has my experience, but I think since I have wavy hair - the findings of the article make sense in my case.
You guys have lots of experience as practitioners, but this was an academic study - not some conspiracy theory.
What is the basis of an “academic study?”
Having “MD” after your name does not make something an academic study “prima facie.” An academic study should be based on great numbers of clients and careful documentation.
Sure, the article is “true” … and my 40-years of experience are worthless, according to our resident sage. “Conspiracy theory?” What the H… are you talking about?
Listen to yourself Michael, because you sound ridiculous.
Those doctors have many years of experience as well.
The ‘academic’ in academic study isn’t about vanity and becoming a doctor isn’t easy. Getting published isn’t easy.
I never said your 40 years of experience meant nothing, whereas you immediately and vehemently struck out the findings of the study.
Your reaction says more about you, than my last comment - which was very tepid. I don’t understand why you’re so irritable.
And by conspiracy theory - I meant to again reiterate that this is an academic study.
The conclusions of the paper I cited were based on this study ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7673501 ), published by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
JAAD is a reputable source and the authors clearly have experience. I only agree with the findings because I am someone who has wavy hair and dark skin. So I feel like it applies to me.
Considering you admit to having no idea why I’m experiencing so many ‘tombstone’ hairs - and when I also consider that my own electrologist has no answers for me, this seems like the logical explanation.
The simplest explanation also.
This is what happened:
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I didn’t have ingrown hairs in the test area.
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Then I had electrolysis.
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Then my skin became inflamed/PIH’d/bumpy and this has persisted. Last week, my electrologist tweezed out hairs from these spots.
I’m excruciatingly familiar with the Richard’s and Meharg studies.
How long after that area was treated did your electrologist tweeze out hairs from those bumps?
I think this is perhaps more about your particular skin type, LD. Perhaps you should not do electrolysis because you are a rare individual that perhaps has skin that goes into “panic mode” and heals in ways that others do not. Perhaps you have an immune response that goes into overdrive.
I say this, because I treat many people, with all kinds of skin types and hair structures and they heal really well. Concerns are not ongoing.
I believe what you are saying, of course. I feel bad for you. If you are ever in Columbus, I would be glad to do a large test spot on you and see if your skin reacts the same way on your arm or another area. I know I saw you once and I think we worked on your upper arm. Didn’t you have the same reaction after our first consultation that you are experiencing with KU?
I think it all relates back to you as an individual, as far as the healing goes.
Believe me, the medical experts with their respected medical journals are not always correct. In regard to electrolysis, they don’t do the comprehensive research for information about electrolysis, but rather they pull a line or two from another source that was wrong and they keep perpetuating ignorance. I, as well as electrolysis practitioners in general, are consistently discussing these gross errors on our closed forums. The laziness involved is alarming and it makes me wonder if the other information is correct.
I wish I could compliment them for being better researchers, but they are not when it comes to anything to do with electrolysis. I have several doctors and researcher types in my family who have had their pieces published over the years. Other sources are used. They don’t actually experience what they are talking about. Those others sources may be flawed, but they get into the journals anyway.
Well, my beloved Dee answered this for me … thanks kiddo!
Hi Dee,
Actually I had no adverse effects from your test spot. I would love to do a large test spot! Maybe we can schedule something.
@Stop
It has at least been 1 month roughly.
I find it extremely hard to accept that it’s the skin. PIH yes, bumps and ingrowns as standard, not so much. There’s an elephant in the room but everyone is being too diplomatic to out right point it out…
I would run in Dee’s direction. If you’re having the same reaction from more than one electrologist then maybe you can blame your skin.
Right, so one month after treating your arm, she’s extracting remenants from bumps that formed at the treated follicles. I know what that sounds like to me but I’d rather someone else elaborate. Unless you already had ingrown hairs in this area that she was attempting to treat, I’m pretty sure this shouldn’t be happening.
LD,
My contact information hasn’t changed, so contact me if you want. We can do our own testing, complete with pictures. I can do blend and several different modes of thermolysis I prefer to use. I don’t use manual thermolysis - not necessary, but if you want me to do that I can.
Let’s play scientist here and see what we discover.
I agree with my colleagues here. The conclusions of this study are completely wrong.
And I sing the mea culpa, LDLD, I think I was not very clear and I apologize for that. From now on I will be much less diplomatic:
This is what I think about what happened:
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I didn’t have ingrown hairs in the test area.
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Then I had what I thought was electrolysis.
Josefa was having problems posting the following and therefore requested me to do so:
“3. Then my skin became inflamed (as it inevitably must occur after a treatment where the follicles have been partially cooked). PIH’d (as in most dark skins)/bumpy (because the healing process has not concluded). Last week my electrologist tweezed out hairs from these spots (perhaps because the follicles were not sufficiently treated, and this is true regrowth).”
@Stop
What would be the elephant? I have posted pictures of my skin. Several times.
I absolutely did not have ingrown hairs in the test area.
None whatsoever. They came after my electrolysis treatments.
I shouldn’t have to document my case in a series of before/afters.
These bumps are clustered together in such an obviously unnatural formation. Its not as if I am waxing/shaving this one random half-dollar size spot on my forearm.
I’d rather not subject myself to further ingrown hairs, simply to satisfy your curiosity but I plan on seeing a couple of different electrologists in the future as a last effort to see if that may be the independent variable here.
My current electrologist is a lovely person and only wanted to help me but its not working out - either because electrolysis isn’t right for my skin and hair type and characteristics of fast hair growth or whatever, or because the modality is not well-suited.
I had virtually no ingrown hair problems on my upper arms, but at the same time - it seems as though most of the hair has grown back anyway.
Most - if not all - of the bumps had hairs in them. My electrologist tweezed them out with little force applied.
I could not see whether they had bulbs or not though.
After my appointment, these spots looked micro-swollen (obviously - since I had them tweezed).
I think the color will normalize in time. My hope is that since I’ve had the dead remnant hair tweezed out, there won’t be any further inflammation.
My understanding is that this remnant hair is from a different follicle that was nearby the treated follicle… And got partially zapped in the process… Thus, it ‘grew’ out funny and got stuck underneath the skin.
If I have a single follicle treated - the zapped hair that is taken out, is the only hair in that follicle right? 1 follicle = 1 hair?
LDLD - Josefa has been as clear as it is possible to be with the above!!