The first time I noticed the adverse reactions of the ipl was when I went in for my very first test patch on the back of my shoulder where the hair was light and sparse.
Soon after the test patch area grew back it came out thicker and darker and I remeber looking in the mirror comparing both sides of my shoulder thinking “those dark hairs were never there before and why are they only on the one side of my shoulder in the test patch area” and wondering if the ipl did this.
Sice I started treatment over a year ago it now seems all the areas on my body that had light sparse hair have grown back after treatments looking a lot darker and thicker. The ipl was effective in reducing hair for areas that had dark and thick hairs to begin with but how could it have stimulated and increased more growth in the sparse areas that were treated?
Furthermore when I contacted the company to discuss this with them I was told by the manager she had encountered one other case like this and suggested that I need to go through a full course of 8 treatments to get rid of the darkened areas as she believed dorment hairs may have been woken up as a result of the treatment and further treatment would eventually eliminate them. But what if she is wrong? I was also told I would be given a good price beacuse of this but when I went into the consultation with a staff she gave still gave me a very high price and I dont know why I should have to pay for something I wouldnt have had to if they had warned me of the possible effects then I would not be having this problem in the first place.
When I contacted the manager again this time she said not to belive the rumuours that ipl can increase hair growth but I tried to explain to her that I had not heard of any rumuors and that I was purely going by what I was experiencing personally. First she tells me she has encountered another case like this before and now shes trying to tell me its a rumuour!?! :o
Im not sure what to do but I would appreciate any advice.
I’m only sorry that you couldn’t have stumbled across this site for advice before this happened. I’m beginning to think that the news media or the FDA needs to clearly set out some warnings to neophyte consumers about the possibility of stimulated hair growth with laser/IPL systems on certain facial and body areas BEFORE they sign the contract. This is reported way too much and is robbing people in the most unfair ways.
Demand your money back. Start writing letters of complaint to your congress person. Heck, they have a committee for everything else, why not hair removal deception. At least the place of business should inform you of the possibility of stimulated hair growth at the consultation so you can decide if it is a risk you want to take! THe manager seemed to know that this happens. How long have they been in business? What IPL was used?
Electrolysis can get the hair that appeared after this IPL failure, that is, if you have any desire or trust left to truly remove the hair permanently.
Unfortunately, this is a common side effect when treating this specific area AND sparse finer hair. Laser should be only used on dense, coarse hair, especially on this area. There isn’t much you can do as this is not yet a published fact and you probably signed something that relieved them of most of the responsibility. I would recommend asking for your money back so you can invest it in electrolysis on this area. Also, if the hair is now truly dense and coarse, an effective alex laser may be able to tackle it.
Thanks for the comments I had no idea this was a common side effect.
I did do a search in these forums several times before I posted but did not find anything, perhaps i was using the wrong keywords?
I rang them up again just before and was real angry at them this time and there is no chance they will give me my money back they insist that I need full 8 treatments to reduce the hairs grown in the spars areas and for that they quoted me a reduced fee of $200 australian dollars per treatment so $1600 all up just for my shoulder to arms. What makes me mad is that they are acting all sceptical and saying that maybe its just age related growth or im just being self concious.
Looks like i have to pay them more money but the question is will the 8 treatments work or even stimulate more hair??
And yet another person to validate that I am not crazy. I should be credited as the first person to discover laser/ipl induced hair growth
I tried getting my money back as well, even after one time when one specific laser didn’t even cause a hair free period. I was never successful. They would tell me I was lying, and that I actually had less hair. All I wanted was my money back. If they say no, there is not a whole lot you can do except being persistent.
Actually, if life was fair you would be able to sue for damages for not being told there was a chance the procedure COULD induce hair growth. But it is almost impossible to prove you hair growth in an area has increased unless you took before and after pictures and paid someone to get a biopsy of your hair follicles in a certain region.
As far as IPL on your shoulders, I know in males at least, that is just about the worst place you would want to get intense pulsed light treatments. If it’s not bad, you might as well try electrolysis. It’s long, may be a little painful, but you can be sure it works. You probably won’t end up paying much more money if any as well in the long run. It still takes a couple years to clear an area even if you are seeing reduction from laser based on the frequency you need to return for treatments.
Their is a LASER hair stimulator treatment being marketed in higher priced spas as we speak. But I spent early days of this forum getting slammed for “trying to protect electrolysis’ turff” when I would mention this and other dangers of LASER treatments.
Hey, one can get bad electrolysis as well, but presumably, if one gets as many samples as possible, one would not just blindly go along while someone did massively bad work over a large area of one’s body hour after hour, after hour.
Lastly, I tell people over and over to take before during and after pictures. One needs at least the one good Before picture, as it will be the one thing you want, and can’t get later.
Run a search for “induced growth” here. That should turn up results. Also, use the Advanced Search function to expand the search results to 2-3 years, not just search posts from last week. There may be some links to articles posted there about this phenomenon that is just starting to get discussed at conferences. You may want to send a message to a member here, SSLHR, to see if he can point you to anything published on the matter that you can present to the clinic.
I regret not having taken pictures before the treatment =(
ok they rang me back up saying they will give me 3 free treatments for my upper arms where the ipl induced hair growth but what will happen to my lower arms as when I wear a t-shirt there is going to be an obvious line with a hair free area where its been treated. Its summer right now and i dont want to look funny. I tried explaining to them that it will look odd having half my arm traeted and the other half covered in hair but they failed to understand the issue, omg how can they be this stupid!!!
I have heard that IPL is no better than long term waxing. Three free treatments is suppossed to solve your problem? The word FREE means nothing in this case.
You are in a pickle here. More IPL is not the solution. Electrolysis will permanently get rid of only the offending hair present. We can be very selective, since we treat individual hairs one at a time. We can do this quickley, if there is a skilled electrologist using modern, computerized equipment.The problem is, I’m not getting the sense that there are electrologists that do microflash thermolysis or even falsh thermolysis in Austrailia from the discussions I have been involved in recently? If there are electrolysis choices in Austrailia, I would surely be so relieved to know that you have this option over any other so called “free” options.
We have heard these personal stories for years now. Chuck being the most prominent poster here on hairtell and the now defunct Kitty’s forum. He wasn’t treated too well when he was shouting that this really happened to him on Kitty’s Consumer Beware. Think about your next approach and don’t be taken in with the word “FREE”.
Can you post a picture of what your hair looks like now on your upper arms? If it’s not very dense and coarse, I doubt this will work anyway.
Btw, most people only have hair on their lower arms, so it’s not really weird. You can always blend in the rest with electrolysis which treats each hair individually.
I take it you are male? If so I would not go back even for free treatments for IPL in that area. You may have better luck with laser, but then again you may not. As more and more research and better lasers are made, hopefully laser induced hair growth will be a thing of the past…but IPL’s really are like laser waxing. I would not expect any long term reduction from them. Remember there is a difference between laser and IPL’s. My mother even tried many treatments of IPL’s and she it all came back for her as well, on hair that wasn’t very thick.
Thank you to everyone for the great advice. yes I am a male and I have never considered electrolysis, perhaps cause I have so much body hair the thought of treating them one at a time seems too big of a task. But I do like the idea of using it as a means of geting smaller areas blended in, thanks for that tip lagirl.
I hope you are wrong in suggesting that the ipl isnt any better than a longterm waxing as i have had good results in coarse and dense areas and its seems the hair seems reduced there for the past 10 months, i would hate to think that this is only temporary.
Like I said …I have had good results in coarse areas but terrible reactions in ligher spars areas due to increased hair growth. The areas that were once light are now as dark and thick as the denser areas on my body since the treatment.
I had initially decided to take up their 3 free treatments and add some extra cash on top to get a total of 6 more treatments in those induced areas but now im concerned as people here have said how ineffective ipl is.
This is the ipl that company uses is a Palomar Multilux IPL Sapphire Lens,
wavelength: 400nm - 1400nm
Cooling Device: Pre, Parallel and Post
Pulse Characteristics: 10ms - 100ms
Treatable skin types: All
Approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), TGA and CE for “permanent hair reduction”
are they any good? if not I will insist they treat me witha laser in one of their other locations as the one i goto only has ipl. Thanks
IPLs do work and this one is not a bad machine. It’s just that they work best on very light skin and very coarse hair, and true powerful lasers can usually provide faster results and work better on finer hair. There is also more potential for burns with IPLs (sure they advertise that they can treat all skin types, but they have to set the settings so low to treat darker skin types in order to avoid burning, that the treatments will never be effective). Please read the FAQ section in the link below on the differences.
The induced hair growth on this area, when treating sparse hair, happens with both IPLs and true lasers.
There are published studies on this! hairgrowthnews.com (paradoxical hypertrichosis after laser epilation). There is another one that I can not find the name of but the doctor on that one is working with me to see what she can do to help my son who had this happen to him. I can not believe this has happened to so many people and our dermatologist said “It can’t be the laser”. Sure, whatever you say.
babsesl, you keep posting the same thing in several threads here, telling us what we already know and what has been discussed on these forums for several years. I don’t see the point of your posts.
Do read a bit more on the forum and find out how to deal with the situation. For example, he can get electrolysis on this area which is what he should have done in the first place. Unfortunately the industry is just coming to realize that this side effect is an issue on some areas in some people. It wasn’t a known thing before, so many clinics weren’t aware of it. Most didn’t do it maliciously.
lagirl: First of all, I just joined this forum today, looking for help, so I wouldn’t know what has been discussed for years. Sorry for my ignorance. I saw several posts stating the same problem my son has and thought I could help a bit. That is the point of my posts! That’s all. They certainly were not put here to annoy you.
I never said anything was done maliciously, so please don’t infer that I did.
We are looking into electrolysis and I definitely don’t need you telling me what we should have done in the first place.
You are welcome to post here and share your experiences. What was “annoying” in your posts was that it seemed that you didn’t bother to read the entire thread with all the responses that the original posters received and comment on that at all. We read all the posts, so there is really no reason to copy and paste the same thing in 5 different threads.
Sorry babses–when you’re new to a forum you don’t know right away what you’re “supposed” to do. Some people lurk here awhile before jumping in, and they kind of know how things are, and others post right away not knowing what might annoy somebody, or not having seen the rules, or whatever. When I first started doing message boards and forums, I really didn’t know a thing about them, or how to use them. Posters would kindly direct me to a thread or a link so they wouldn’t have to repeat what was said, and I got the hint after awhile. I even had to be told how to do a search and how to provide a link–something everybody seemed to know except me.
Not all of us are annoyed. Hope you come back. Every forum has its own “personality” just as individual posters do.
To everyone else… there are kinder ways of making a point. Give people the benefit of the doubt so we don’t unwittingly drive people away. Use a little charity, here.
