Is EMLA cream a safe anesthetic for LightSheer?

Has anyone here heard of a topical anesthetic called EMLA cream. My practitioner wants me to use it before my LightSheer laswer treatment. (on back and shoulders). Are there any side affects for this cream/medicine?

thanks,

We always highly suggest patients never to use these anesthetic creams for a very good reason.
The only way for a technician to adjust the settings of a diode laser on a patient skin is to see the skin and the patient’s reaction. The problem when you apply an anesthetic cream is that, since you won’t feel the laser the technician will go higher in the joules and this can result on severe burning and depigmentation of your skin.
Especially when having a treatment performed with a Lumenis Lightsheer which is today the most powerful and probably the best diode laser on the market.
You’d better of having one or 2 more treatments at low intensity rather than a permanent problem. A good technician will never ask to use an anesthetic cream. Another way around it is for you to find a salon using an IPL system because it is by far less painfull and as efficient as a diode laser.
Good luck
Phil
Medicam.ca

Thanks for your reply. So should I just tell my practitioner to go ahead with the LightSheer, but use a much lower setting. I had 8 treatments with Alexandrite at a low setting (12-16 J) because it hurt me a lot. Overall, the treatments were not lasting. But I rather be safe than sorry.

Adam, do not have treatments with the lighsheer at a low energy!!! It will stimulate more hair growth. The first 3 treatments that I had on my back were with the Lightsheer at 24 Joules/cm2. The amount of hair that I had after the treatments was 10 times worst the before. It was awful… I know everyone responds diferently to LHR, but if I were you I wouldn’t risk having more hair growth. As I’ve said before, I’m now having treatments at a very high energy, and the results are good. I do feel a lot of pain, but it’s the only way to kill these damn hairs.

Thanks for that info! I used a small intensity with Alexandrite, but that didnt make things worse (it just kept everything the same). Is Lightsheer specifically known to make things worse, or was that your own personal experience?

Also, did your practitioner suggest using some anesthetic cream to numb the pain? If so, were there any dangers in doing so?

Adam, if you read this forum, 2 things are obvious. If you can bear the pain at all, DO IT. It’s best not to use the anesthetic if you can avoid it. Most people feel that it’s tolerable without it. In addition to that, you CAN’T use it on large areas like the back anyways. There have been several deaths from that because it’s an overdose. Those creams are only meant for us on small areas. Either way, do at least your first treatment without it and see how it goes.

As David says and as you experienced yourself, getting treated at low settings is a waste of time, especially on the areas you are getting done which are more difficult for men to treat. Doing that will at the very least not result in any reduction, or even worse as in David’s situation, stimulate more growth. What is your skin type? You should be getting treated at settings of 30 joules and up on LightSheer if your skin can handle it. The higher the better all the way without burning your skin. If you can handle 40 or even 50 joules, go for it. Have them do test spots if necessary to see how high you can go safely.

Thanks LAGIRL. My practitioner wants to cover my entire back with and shoulders EMLA cream, which I found odd.

I guess I’ll try the test spot to see what I can handle. Using Gentlase Alexandrite, I handled up to 16 J/cm(2). Can I compare those settings to the LightSheer that I am about to use? (because in that case, 30-40 would kill me!)

no, GentleLASE settings are a bit lower on the scale. I’ve been treated from 14 joules to 30 joules with GentleLASE and I can tell you that there is a difference, but it’s not HUGE and 30 joules is not intolerable for me ( I have type II skin). I think you’ll be fine with 30 or even 40 joules on LightSheer. Just remember while you’re there getting it done that you’re actually killing hair. It’s supposed to hurt. If you don’t want to or absolutely can’t handle the pain at those settings, I wouldn’t waste the money. And if you think you will feel better after one treatment where you will be able to assess the pain that using EMLA on a few more painful areas will help, then do that. BUT DO NOT LET THEM PUT IT ON YOUR ENTIRE BACK!! Just google for “EMLA” and “death” and you’ll know why. There is a girl in NC that died from putting it on her entire legs.

My old practitioner just emailed me and said that EMLA shouldnt be put on the entire back either.

thanks for your help lagirl.

Adam

david and lagirl are right about having the treatment a too low intensity. You should have it performed at 30-35 joules. Today, the new lightsheer systems are locked at 40 or 50 joules to avoid going to high and burn the patient.
The reason why some patient notice that after their first sessions they have more hair is not really due to the intensity but mostly by the fact that you shave before the treatment.
The problem when you shave is that you remove the hair but also the fuzz. The problem is that once you shave the fuzz it grows back like a hair so you have more hair.
As an example, same thing can happen or happened when you shave(d) your face. If you shave(d) too low on your neck, you (will) also have hair on your neck.
Any woman treating her face for permanent hair removal should get shaved by the technician to make sure that only hairy areas will be shaved and treated. Shaving a non hairy area can have dramatic consequences…hair everywhere on the face. Same thing for other parts of the body.
Hope this helped you understand. But as david and lagirl said, the lightsheer is a great system and you should have you treatment done around 30-35 joules. 35 joules is painful but efficient.
Hope this helped.
Phil
Medicam.ca

I agree with the above posts, but wanted to add some more info here. EMLA 4% or even 5% interfers with the blood supply to the area where it is applied. That’s why your skin may look very white after it has absorbed. You need that blood supply to be in the area when one does laser to transfer the heat from those treated pigment (color) cells in the follicle to the capillaries so the area cools down as quickly as possible.

Also, there is a note of caution in the literature for some of these lidocaine based anesthetics that an area no bigger than 15" X 20" should be covered at one time.

Please do your best to tolerate the proceedure without this stuff. Maybe your tech can lower the levels a notch or two. If you need it, then go slower and smaller. I can speak for my electrolysis clients only - they seem to tolerate treatment just fine without topicals, even on the middle upper lip which is the worse area to work on. You can try to take a couple pain killers orally 1 1/2 hours before the proceedure, with the advice of your physician or do the over the counter meds that you usually take for a headache.
Just check and see when the medication peaks in your bloodstream (when it’s the most potent), so you know how soon before the laser proceedure to take it to get maximum pain relief effect. Of course you know not to ingest anything that will impair your judgement and then drive a car.

Dee

Adam

david and lagirl are right about having the treatment a too low intensity. You should have it performed at 30-35 joules. Today, the new lightsheer systems are locked at 40 or 50 joules to avoid going to high and burn the patient.
The reason why some patient notice that after their first sessions they have more hair is not really due to the intensity but mostly by the fact that you shave before the treatment.
The problem when you shave is that you remove the hair but also the fuzz. The problem is that once you shave the fuzz it grows back like a hair so you have more hair.
As an example, same thing can happen or happened when you shave(d) your face. If you shave(d) too low on your neck, you (will) also have hair on your neck.
Any woman treating her face for permanent hair removal should get shaved by the technician to make sure that only hairy areas will be shaved and treated. Shaving a non hairy area can have dramatic consequences…hair everywhere on the face. Same thing for other parts of the body.
Hope this helped you understand. But as david and lagirl said, the lightsheer is a great system and you should have you treatment done around 30-35 joules. 35 joules is painful but efficient.
Hope this helped.
Phil
Medicam.ca

I’m not a doctor, but I’ve asked many of them and they all told me that shaving will NOT make your hair thicker, longer, coarser. They told me there were many studies that were made to see if shaving could make the hair grow thicker and all of them reached the same conclusion: SHAVING DOES NO MAKE THE HAIR GROW THICKER, OR DARKER, OR COARSER. And the reason that I had more hair after the first treatment was not due to the fact that I shaved the area, it was because of the low energy used. There are many people who have experienced the same thing. Stimulated hair growth due to low energy can happen especially on men’s back and shoulders, and on women’s face. Again, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve been doing LHR for more than 18 months and have been researching a lot of things about it, and I can garantee you, the stimulated hair growth was due to the low energy used, and not because of shaving.

I agree with David. Shaving definitely doesn’t make hair thicker or more coarse. You’re only removing the top layer of the hair, above the skin’s surface. Not touching the root at all. It doesn’t have any effect on the structure of the hair. It can seem like that’s the effect sometimes because most people notice “this” when they’re in their teens and they’re getting more and more hair anyways. Plus, when you shave, the part of the hair that’s left is a bit more thick than the end of the hair that you shave off. That contributes to the feel of “stubble” sometimes.

Waxing etc DOES make hair stronger for a lot of people though and more coarse because you stimulate blood supply to the area when you rip the hair out with the root, so the body can “repair” the damage. And hair feeds on this, making it stronger and thicker.

Increased hair growth from laser has been continously reported on this and other forums and most of the posts have similar variables: low settings and same areas treated (man’s back/upper arms/shoulders and woman’s face).