Hi I am a student electrologist and I am a little confused when it comes to insertions and feeling the depth.My teacher gets me to practice on my leg and she says i should feel the bottom of the follicle. To be honest I have tried so hard to feel this and am not feeling anything. I have practised on my family and again i do not feel anything,the probe can slide in all the way and it feels the same to me i do not feel resistance. However, i have a friend who is an electrologist and she says to me that for her she goes by intuition, if a hair is fine than the insertion is not so deep and the darker strong hairs you insert deeper. I do not know can i get the advice of other electrologist and how they go about feeling the bottom of the follicle.
thanks
If you hold the probe in such a way that you have such a light touch on it that someone can take it out of your hand, you will be holding it correctly for this work. When you get to resistance, the probe will start to slide backwards in your hand. The top of the anchor system will be the first resistance you feel, and you tighten up on the grip to push past that, and then the second resistance you feel will be the bottom of the follicle. YOU DON’T PUSH PAST THAT.
In all my years of teaching, I have found that nurses are the ones who have the hardest time with this, as they seem to be so focused on the jab and poke of injections, they have a hard time backing up in thought to do this type of work, where we are trying NOT to break the sides, or bottom of the insertion into an indentation that naturally exists.
When you insert slowly on your legs you should at the least feel a warming sensation as the probe reaches closer to the bottom, and then a slight prick as it touches the bottom of the follicle.
If you can’t get this sensitivity, don’t worry, you can still do this work, it will just be a longer, harder road. It has taken a year or more for those who can’t get the feel down, to be able to do acceptable insertions, but they get there.
I’ve heard of several ways to practice this.
- Newsprint. Inserting in the middle of letters and periods. This helps accuracy of eye/hand work.
- Towels. Insert in the weave of a towel. You will begin developing the sensation of missing the mark when you break through threads. Breaking those threads is very subtle, and you might not “feel” it at first.
- Combination of a towel and fine paper. Placing a sheet of paper between two towels will enable you to get the sensation of running into the bottom of the follicle or even the follicle wall. If you just don’t “feel” it, try a few with your eyes closed. It might be that your brain is focusing too much on the visual and not paying attention to the touch.
You might do some “dry” insertions on your legs. Inserting without being hooked up to the epilator. The point of this exercise would be to develop that sense of touch you need.
Wishing you the best!
If you are not the highly sensitive or intuitive or psychic type, do not worry, science will help you!
There are some guidelines. We know the approximate depth of terminal anagen hairs and they vary between 2 - 5 mm. You can judge this better as you remove a hair.
Perform electrolysis until you get easy slide-out.
Each time, you are holding your forcep on the epidermis where the hair meets the skin.
After you slide the hair out - make sure to keep the hair in the forcep.
Hold your probe alongside the newly removed hair and see how deep you had to go. This gives you an idea of how deep the terminal anagen hairs are – in that area.
You will discover that generally upper-lip hairs are shallower and breast hairs are deepest.
In order for this measurement technique to be most useful in thermolysis treatment, it would be ideal for the client to shave between treatments if the client can not come in regularly.
(On the “feeling” note: there is something to, “intuitiveness” in electrolysis too. If you speak to enough of the successful electrologists, you will discover that these folks also happen to be artists, writers…
There is definitely an ART and a science to doing this work.)