sslhr;
In the clients that I have performed electrolysis on, after unsatisfactory laser treatments, I have found hairs that are in excess of 3/8" deep and usually growing almost straight down, and not as an angle. Some are so deep that even with my longest probes, I cannot get deep enough to get a good release and the hair breaks.
My comments about spot size concern this. Laser light is coherent. A 1 inch diameter of laser light at the source will still be inch when it reaches space. It does not diverge. So changing the spot size then becomes only changing the area being covered at one time. If changing the spot size, also changes the energy at one given spot, then the light source is not coherent. In that case it is not LASER light but focused light.
Having seen Light (Carbon Arc Lamps) actually melt steel with my own eyes, I do know a little about the power of light.
In the case that I was talking about, the persons skin was at best the same color as the hair. That means that the Melonin in the skin is going to heat up prior to the hair even getting any light. Hair needs to be darker than the skin color for Laser Hair removal to work.
My opinion as to why hair turn white has just changed. In the book, “Introduction to the Human Body” by Gerard Tortora and Sandra Grabowski on pg 107. White hair results from accumulation of air bubbles in the hair shaft. Grey hair is from the decline of Melanin. Now this really has me wondering.
Please someone help me if you can. I have a very good friend, who has many hair folicles with two hairs growing out of them. One will be very very dark, and the other will be totally white. I had come to the opinion that one was getting a good blood supply and the other was not. This seems to indicate that in these cases, air bubbles are being developed in one hair but not the other. The air bubbles would be in the shaft and not in the bulb or papula. She had previous Laser, and did not have these white hairs before the laser treatment. I would really appreciate it if someone could please explain what is going on.
Martha, I’m curious about the same thing that I stated earlier. How do you know that the hairs are the way they are AS A RESULT of laser if you haven’t seem the person and treated their hair BEFORE they had laser treatments? Wouldn’t this mean that their hair could have always been like the way it is when they get to you?
lagirl;
Since I had not seen the hair roots of the person beforehand, I cannot say whether they were that way before or not. What I am saying, is that if the hairs were that way prior to laser, than the laser treatments were a total waste of time.
If they were that way, and a laser operator had pulled just one or two hairs, they could have seen that the equipment would not have been recommended. So either the laser treatments caused what happened to happen, or the laser treatments were a total waste. You pick your choice.
do you know for these specific clients what exact machine was used? settings would be helpful too. a lot of times it’s the operator fault at not setting settings properly to reach deep enough for specific types of hair, and/or using proper laser that can reach deep enough.
lagirl,
The clients were not well enough informed to even bother with what kind of laser was being used. Not using the proper laser is exactly what I am complaining about. They just thought laser was laser and it did not make any difference at all as to whom they went to. Some can only say, well they had this wand, and it had a vacuum that sucked my skin into the wand and it zapped me. Others have explained that it had some kind of cooling unit to try and keep the surface of the skin cool while they were using the laser. But nothing at all as to settings on a machine or as to even what kind of laser. They just take it for granted that the laser operator is going to do right by them. I wish I could get more information, but they really do not know.
A couple have commented, that they do not even think the laser operators knew what the settings really should be. They had a chart on the wall and would just use the settings based on what was marked on the chart.
I hate to admit it, but it is cases like this that is causing Washington State to all of a sudden come down hard on Laser Operators. For far too long, operators were able to purchase a doctors name and set up operation. I do not believe that they may even have visited that doctor, but anyway, the doctor was certainly not in the area, but it gave them a name in order to set up business. The state is now going after those Spa’s and is even considering charging them with “Practicing Medicine w/o License.”
Your practices may be nothing at all like what we are experiencing here. But from what I have seen around my area, it is something that I do not wish to jump into the middle of. What I want is to take care of my clients hair problems is the best way possible.
I understand the issue and it’s challenging. I think one thing you can do is ask them to call the office where they had treamtents and ask what lasers they have, or even used on them specifically. Everyone keeps charts. Or you could even possibly call yourself so you know what clinics in your area use what machines. I’ve called most of the clinics around my area just so that I’m aware in case people come here and post on services of a specific clinic and don’t know anything about the machine.
No question that the melanosomes (pigment packets that are found in the skin and the hair) can be damaged and in the process, lose their pigment. Especially in hair. This is what bleaching does.
This is also what happens when someone becomes hypopigmented as a result of a laser injury. The melanosomes are damaged and the pigment is lost. The hypopigmentation then continues because the melanocytes are shut down secondary to the injury.
I think the same mechanism can occur inside the hair shaft with a laser pulse, though the energy is usually enough to significant damage the hair shaft rather than just damage and remove the color.
But what I don’t think happens and what we are talking about is whether the melanocytes (the cells that make the pigment) can be damages or injured enough not to produce pigment while the follicular cells are not. The only way to create a hair without pigment as opposed to removing the pigment after the hair is created, is to shut down or destroy the melanocyte. And I know of no mechanism that can do that selectively in the hair follicle due to the laser pulse.
Of course it can happen other ways (why hair turns white), I just don’t know how it can happen with a laser pulse.
I can’t say anything about your 3/8" long hair. That works out to 9.5 mm and the thickest dermis around is only 3 mm on the male back. Add in another mm or so for the epidermis and you got 4 mm. Half of your 9.5 mm for the entire epidermis/dermis on the back. It is much thinner in other areas.
Laser light is coherent. But a couple of things do happen to change that in laser hair removal. First, in the handpiece there are lens that shape the beam. At that point it is no longer coherent. And when the pulse hits the skin, it scatters. And that scatter is what causes the beam to not effectively penetrate past a certain depth. The depth is dependent on the spot size and the co-efficient of scatter. The co-efficient of scatter decreases as the wavelength increases. But spot size is more important.
And you are right, it is very difficult to remove hair that is the same color as the skin.
One of my clients refers to the long hairs as being mutations. They were really a challenge to get rid of. The most difficult was on a client, who had vertually no moisture left in her skin. Her skin was extremely dry and almost felt like leather. But she had tried so many different means of hair removal besides laser, she had tried electrolysis without probes that used electrode pads. The person did not know what they were doing, and when hair would not come out, turned her unit up full bore and killed some of her skin. She had also had some blend electrolysis as well back some time ago. She is the one that has multiple hairs from the same follicle, with one being virtually black, and another totally white.
Now she is using a good moisturizer, and the skin is getting much softer, and the hairs actually have a moisture sheath on the shaft.