Aw thank you so much >w<! Sometimes I’ll be writing my journal and feel uncertain if the content is meaningful or not haha. So I really appreciate knowing you feel that way!
Oh I am so glad :D! this comment makes me feel so giddy hehe.
This session: 6-December-2023, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,395 minutes (39h55m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right lower leg (just behind knee)
Left lower leg (just behind knee)
Left upper leg (just behind and beside knee)
Right upper leg (just behind and beside knee)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 4 hours after session.
Total time on right lower leg: 662 minutes (11h02m)
Time on right lower leg THIS session: 18 minutes
Total time on left lower leg: 854 minutes (14h14m)
Time on left lower leg THIS session: 24 minutes
Total time on left upper leg: 75 minutes (1h15m)
Time on left upper leg THIS session: 24 minutes
Total time on right upper leg: ~18 minutes
Time on right upper leg THIS session: ~18 minutes
Modality, thermo
Occluded lidocaine behind knees 1 hour before session; took anti-histamine taken 30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: So I was just about to start writing this journal last week, when I got a text saying we had to cancel because of illness; and silly me didn’t continue to write this journal after getting that text. Unfortunately, now that it’s been an extra week, I don’t remember very much and had to parse almost everything through my photo timestamps. I remember that the session immediately after my high pain threshold session, I had a very painful session–and that high threshold session was the last one I posted. So probably the painful session was this one.
I don’t think it was because of the area (upper leg) but rather because I had been experiencing mittelschmerz on and off for the past 7 days. Not very pleasant!! That experience has continued to be on-and-off since my session–which is funny to me, given it’s now not in the “middle” of anything–so it wouldn’t surprise me if this upcoming session wasn’t too delightful, either.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I don’t remember very much discomfort during the week though! I’ve had to continue to put effort into keeping my legs hydrated and oiled though, due to Winter weather. Just 1 morning ago I experienced some chaffing on the front of my shin after waking up; it felt more like a “this is just finishing healing” morning chafing though, and everything is visually looking very good there :3
Plans for next session: The original plan was one week of doing entirely an upper leg to allow the lower leg to rest, and then 1 week of clearing both lower legs of visible hair. Now that we had a skip session it has been 1 week of rest already, but we haven’t done the entirely upper leg session. So I’m not sure which one we’ll do! Plus there’ll be another 1 week break after this session, too. Whatever we end up doing, it’ll probably be dependent on what needs to happen with the hair.
This session: 20-December-2023, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,485 minutes (41h25m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right lower leg (overall cleanup of front)
Left lower leg (overall cleanup of front)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken ~6 hours after session. We took a lot of photos this time, since the treated hair was staggered all across the leg!
Total time on right lower leg: 712 minutes (11h52m)
Time on right lower leg THIS session: 50 minutes
Total time on left lower leg: 894 minutes (14h54m)
Time on left lower leg THIS session: 40 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine taken 30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: This was a very general front of both lower legs cleanup session! Since we skipped a week due to illness, we ended up not doing the upper leg session (which was just an excuse to give the lower legs one more week to rest). The extra week was well appreciated, as the session was not very painful at all.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Nothing of note! But, instead of using aloe vera or letting the skin air out after out session, my electrologist used a lotion of some sort after our session instead. I wonder if that was in large part responsible for my legs being very comfortable afterwards?
Plans for next session: We didn’t talk about it, but it’s now been 34 days since we’ve done underarms. So based on the rest of the underarm sessions, it seems approximately time to do the 8th clear of those! If for some reason I don’t end up being to prep properly (I ran out of my usual poly vinyl food wrap which I use to occlude, and the temp one I have right now is pretty bad) we might end up doing upper legs.
In good news though, all the days that I knew of that were to be skipped have now happened! So hopefully things will look a little more regular, now. At least I know that, in the future when there isn’t enough hair expression to warrant weekly visits anymore, that having them less frequently doesn’t feel totally odd and schedule-throwing after a time or two :o
This session: 3-January-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,575 minutes (42h55m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right underarm (8th clear)
Left underarm (8th clear)
Both areolae (8th clear)
Left upper leg (section near the “middle” of the upper leg, slightly to the outer edge)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken ~4 hours after session.
Total time on right underarm: ~261 minutes (4h21m)
Time on right underarm THIS session: ~14
Total time on left underarm: ~240 minutes (4h)
Time on left underarm THIS session: ~17
Total time for areolae: ~15 minutes max*
Time on each areola THIS session: ~half a minute each?
Total time on left upper leg: 117 minutes (1h57m)
Total time on left upper leg THIS session: ~42
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine 60 minutes before session, occluded lidocaine to underarms ~50 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: Another nice session without much discomfort and tons of fun convos to pass the time :3 The lidocaine worked pretty well this time; the right underarm was only a little bit uncomfy for the first minute or so, but then the rest of the underarms faded into the background pretty easy. Areolae were especially fast this time.
I have a weird almost flat dark bump on my arm near my left underarm that has 1-3 hairs growing out of it usually (I think those are moles??) and we’d never touched them so I assumed that the spot would be reserved for when we do arms. But much to my pleasant surprise my electrologist took care of those this time! Probably they saw the hairs out of the corner of their eye and it bugged them XD
Originally we were going to do hair on my upper left leg closer to the spot we did 2 weeks ago, but the majority of the spots were still pushing out hairs or had some hair stuck under the skin (and it was fairly dry and easy to agitate) so we did another spot further up instead.
Also it was just really cool having not explicitly talked about doing underarms this session, but KNOWING that it was time to do underarms, and the second I walked in having my underarm lidocaine prep work validated with a “we’re doing underarms today, right?” :3 Made me feel all organized and stuff, haha.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I appreciated the reminder to exfoliate the skin via dry brushing more frequently; I always do it at least once a week (before the shower I take prior to my appointment) but I don’t think that’s adequate care for my skin this Winter. I’d run into some issues previously where I’d try dry brushing almost every day, but my skin would become a little raw feeling after the first few days. So this week, I worked on finding a balance of not over brushing (I think I cut the amount of time that I use to dry brush by 2/3rds) and doing those quicker brushes every other day this week. It worked really well I think, my skin never became uncomfortable to brush the whole week, plus I got the benefit of happy feeling legs more frequently! Petting freshly dry brushed legs is really fun, I think, haha.
My underarms were slightly tender for longer than usual, I was vaguely aware of a tenderness for about 5 days after. I think I need to figure out what can be used to moisturize the underarms during the Winter to keep that skin happier. I’m hoping Jojaba Oil or Vitamin E oil is just as fine to use on the underarms as the legs, because I imagine that most products the underarms are too finicky for?
Plans for next session: I expect we’ll either work on the right leg to give the left leg a break, or work on the left leg spot that we would have liked to do last week, but was still too dry and under-exfoliated.
This session: 10-January-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,665 minutes (44h25m)
Areas tackled this session:
Left upper leg (2 section near the top 1/3rd of the upper leg: centered and the outer edge)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 1 week after session because I completely thought I had took them already. Shows off a week of healing with proactive dry brushing and jojoba oil+vitamin E really well though!
Total time on left upper leg: 207 minutes (3h27m)
Total time on left upper leg THIS session: 90
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine 30 minutes before session
Session & any discomfort: A very straightforward session, it’s been a long time since we worked on just 1 area (as far as my time tracking goes) for the whole 90 minutes. My pain threshold was reasonable and I was not in much discomfort at all except for a few zaps during the final minutes.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I continued to dry brush every other day this week (except for one day which got skipped) and used jojoba oil+some vitamin e oil on my legs an extra time this week, 2 or 3 days after my session (can’t remember which, oops).
My skin felt really soft and happy with the extra attention! The treated area became not-noticeably-dry-or-raised to the touch surprisingly quickly, and the standard thigh treatment red dots started fading noticeably around 5 days after the appointment. I suppose if I wanted feedback from my body that it likes what I’m doing, I got some pretty good feedback haha. I’m glad because I always worry about doing too much and bugging the skin while it’s trying to heal, when it comes to adding anything to the skin in that first half-week after session.
Plans for next session: Right upper leg!
This session: 17-January-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,755 minutes (45h55m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right upper leg (1 section near the middle of the upper leg’s outer edge, and 1 section on top of the middle of the upper leg.)
Right lower leg (scattered area across full lower leg, from outer edge below knee, outer calf, lower shin, and near ankle)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 4 hours after session.
Total time on right upper leg: 64 minutes (1h4m)
Total time on right upper leg THIS session: 46 minutes
Total time on right lower leg: 522 minutes (8h42m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: * 44 minutes*
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine 30 minutes before session
Session & any discomfort: The outer edge of my thigh this session was comedically uncomfortable–the muscle underneath contracted every time a hair got treated, and so by the time we moved onto a different section of my upper right leg, the side of my thigh was actually sore! I thought it was kind of funny, anyway. The other middle section of my upper right leg was a little more uncomfortable than the left equivalent last week, but not too noticeable; and then my lower leg decided to be a saint and barely register the sensations at all. Which was surprising! After having so many uncomfortable sessions that happened to be my lower legs.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: While I did less dry brushing this week, I still did my extra jojoba oil +vitamin E, and my skin has remained feeling really happy and is healing great :D. Any dry skin, raises, or scabbing that I can feel on my upper leg is marginal. The lower leg, being further away from the core of my body is of course more noticeable in tiny raised scabs, but it is still such a huge improvement over what my lower leg felt like 1 week after a session in the Summer and Autumn when I was experimenting with the Zensa cream for skincare.
Plans for next session: Both ankles + toes, and the back of the right calf if we get time. An apply-lidocaine-first session for sure!
This session: 24-January-2024, 82 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,837 minutes (47h17m)
Areas tackled this session:
Both ankles
Both feet (only ~3 hairs per foot this time)
Right lower leg (back of leg, from ankle to a few inches below the back-of-knee)
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 1 day after session. 1 of the before ankle photos was too blurry, unfortunately.
Total time on left lower leg: 913 minutes (15h13m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: 19 minutes
Total time on right lower leg: 585 minutes (9h45m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: 63 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~40 minutes before session, occluded lidocaine to toes/ankles ~40 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: I was surprised at how few hairs there were on the toes this time around; there were only 6 hairs total on the toes and I think one or two on the foot itself. The sensation of zapping on the dry tissue of the toes is always pretty intense, but the lidocaine worked great so the intensity wasn’t grouped with very much pain. The ankles were also pretty cooperative with the lidocaine, though the left side which we did first was better–I think because by the time we got to the right side, more of the lidocaine had already been metabolized.
The back of my right leg wasn’t too uncomfortable sans one or two stubborn spots, which was great! Even with my best efforts dry brushing and applying oil to my skin during the week, there are still some hairs that have to be dug up out of the skin and I think those tend to be more uncomfortable than the actual zaps, to be honest.
For the zapping itself, it still feels kind of awkward. I guess toes and leg backs have that similarity? Where there’s a discomfort completely separate from pain.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Still healing great :3 similar to the last 2 weeks with my upper legs, my lower right leg is much happier with more attentive skincare than it got during the summer/autumn. It’s more scabby than the upper leg of course, but the skin surrounding those tiny scabs is really soft!
Plans for next session: Behind the knees! Another lidocaine session.
This session: 31-January-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis time: 2,927 minutes (48h47m)
Areas tackled this session:
Lower left leg (behind the knee, and all-around shin clearing)
Total time on left lower leg: 1,003 minutes (16h43m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: 90 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~40 minutes before session, occluded lidocaine to back of knee ~40 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: I was feeling pretty miserable right before my session, so it wasn’t a good start for anything but a painful one unfortunately. But, I absolutely love talking to my electrologist, so seeing them instantly gave me some happy energy to get me through the start of the session–the back of the knee–pretty OK. It didn’t last the whole session, though; by the time we were in the last 20 minutes and clearing the front of my shin, I already felt totally miserable (but a different kind than before the session . . . lol) but I was detirmined to see all my timeblock through. Then we still chatted for like 10 more minutes afterwards, too. yay :3
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Recovery was hard this week. It’s been a long time since I’ve considered just staying in the car due to discomfort when picking up a tasty post-session snack, and this was one of those sessions. The spot where we removed hair more to the side of my knee still hurt on and off until 6 nights after the session. The back of my leg felt all swollen and unhappy for a good 3-4 days after, and my lymph nodes felt bleh for the first 2 days or so.
I am glad to know though, that even one of the roughest weeks, all the active discomfort is gone by the 7th day after session AKA the day of the new session. Now I’m just really tired and wanting to sleep a lot.
My skin is still soft though :3 I am really proud of my improvement to my skin regimine that’s developed during my electrolysis journey! I even noticed a super fun change in my skin: I went to visually demo my skin writing because I was thinking about how we need to do a spot test for sugar waxing on my skin due to the skin writing reaction. The initial “just lightly scratched 2-3 seconds ago” feeling is the same, but I noticed the reaction kept ceasing instead of persisting like it normally would, and my skin didn’t actually welt up! It was a little bit strange not being able to write lines on my arm haha, but I’m sure it’s a really good thing!
Plans for next session: Underarms, areolae, and wherever else we find to treat hair for the leftover ~50 minutes.
This session: 7-February-2024, 90 minutes
Total session time: 3,004 minutes (50h14m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right underarm (9th clear)
Left underarm (9th clear)
Both areolae (9th clear)
Left arm
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken ~2 hours after session.
Total time on left lower leg: 1,003 minutes (16h43m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: 90 minutes
Total time on right underarm: ~276 minutes (4h36m)
Time on right underarm THIS session: ~15
Total time on left underarm: ~256 minutes (4h16m)
Time on left underarm THIS session: ~16
Total time for areolae: ~16 minutes max
Time on each areola THIS session: ~less than half a minute each
Total time on left arm: 56 minutes
Total time on left arm THIS session: 56 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~40 minutes before session, occluded lidocaine to underarms ~30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: A very pain light session; the underarm lidocaine worked great, my areolae were not sensitive today, and we started a brand new area that isn’t very sensitive!
The very first zap on my arm felt intense, but my body adapted within 3 zaps on my arm and it very quickly felt almost like nothing. I was basically just totally zoned out from the fact I was getting electrolysis and feeling like I was just chatting for the whole almost-hour we were on my arm. We started out just a little bit behind the elbow and then traveled down until we basically ran out of hair that was big enough to treat. I didn’t understand the full meaning of it, but my electrologist talked about starting to basically “thin” the arm hair.
It was this session that I learned the probe we’ve used for all my hair so far, is the 2nd smallest probe that my electrologist carries. Some of the hair on my arms would require the smallest probe size to clear. (Not like, the peach fuzz hairs, just the “normal but really thin” hairs).
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I actually completely forgot that I had an electrolysis session within a couple of hours, because there was no residual discomfort this time. At one point late at night I was doing ?something? and wiped my hand across my sweater sleeve, right over the spot that we treated, at which I remembered “oh!!! right!!! we did that!!” haha because that was a little uncomfortable.
So this week was a big change from the last time or two ago that we did both underarms. Instead of being lymphy and tender for a few days there was just no sensation,
Everything looks great after a week of healing, there is barely any scabbing at all on my left arm.
I will have to talk to my electrologist to form a realistic expectation about what the result with my arm hair removal will look like, since so much of it is smaller than probe size 2. My original expectation is that my arms would end up looking totally bare like my legs, but after 1 arm session it is clear that doesn’t match reality, at minimum due to peach fuzz on the arm that isn’t on my legs. There is a big improvement from all the probe size 2 hair being gone on my left arm (with probe size 1 hair still there) when I compare it to my all-hair-still-there right arm, though, that is for sure. Whatever the realistic expectation ends up being, I can work towards being happy with that.
We talked about what to do for starting my pubic hair removal. The hair that I want to remove because it physically agitates me from a very short length & onwards when I’m sitting up or moving around (and it takes longer to become uncomfortable when I’m trying to sleep, but it does that, too) is, unfortunately, the “bottom half” of the pubic hair–if you were to separate the pubic mound as the “top” and everything else as the "bottom’. This is, according to my electrologist, generally the most painful hair to perform electrolysis on, and many patients start but do not finish which is why many electrologist will not even offer bikini. I think it’s really realistic to talk about a strategy that manages time and pain for this area; I know what spending literally over one-thousand minutes on a single body part is like. I can’t imagine trying to spend over one-thousand minutes cumulative treatment time for the bikini area going over very well.
Months ago, we had talked about starting the area by waxing it first, and then treating it from there as the hairs grow in, as a management strategy to limit how much hair is available to be treated at once while still making live-in-able progress. Now it sounds like my electrologist has a very specific laser specialist that they want to send me to in order to start the pubic area (I imagine we would also wax it a given amount of weeks before the appointment, to maximize telogen hair for laser) and then she would finish off the area with electrolysis afterwards, in order to manage time and pain.
Plans for next session: Right arm, and whatever spot of the leg is currently ready.
I ALSO made a little graphic to visualize all the treatment done so far! We were discussing that we might be at the point, now, where we switch to every other week instead of weekly, because there is less hair. I thought having a visual of how much each body part was done would be helpful for figuring out where we can still clear.
I’ll point out that I don’t understand why there is a ~600 minute discrepancy between the total electrolysis time (which is actually total appointment time) vs the sum of all the body part specific electrolysis time (which is actually timed per body part). One includes things like mid-appointment bathroom breaks, adjusting to/alcohol wiping down/photoing a new area, and any other little miscellanies, and the other one doesn’t. I know it’s been over the course of 42 appointments & a consult so there’s lots of room for error, too. But a 10 hour discrepancy would mean that would be on average ~14 minutes used each session for something other than treatment, which does not seem correct . . . maybe 5-7 minutes, but not 14. I’ll have to comb through all my times in my posts and see if there was a spot that I accidentally misplaced a hundreds place or something.
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This appointment: 21-February-2024, 90 minutes (treatment time: 86 minutes)
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,094 minutes (51h34m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right arm
Left arm
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos, I didn't realize I hadn't taken them so they are ~2 weeks after the session--but they do a great job of showing how fast the arms healed and became visually "normal" again compared to legs!
Total time on right arm: ~68 minutes (1h8m)
Time on right arm THIS session: ~68 minutes
Total time on left arm: ~75 minutes
Total time on left arm THIS session: ~19 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: For this session, my electrologist used a 2S (2, short) probe instead of a regular length 2 probe, because the depth of my arm hair is more shallow than my legs or underarms & other areas. The energy felt more concentrated and sharper than with the regular probes so it was a little more uncomfortable than last session, but the sensation faded to the back of my mind somewhere in probably the first 10 minutes. Funnily enough I felt like I could actually feel it was shorter (not that the depth the probe itself is actually going into my skin should be different). For my electrologist it was much easier to use the probe this way and they felt like they could get better results, which is great!
We started with my right arm and then moved to the left, where there was some hair we couldn’t remove last time due to inflammation response.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Arms are really comfortable and easy-going to heal. I had 2 weeks between this session and my next one instead of 1 week, and thought it was very impressive that both my right side (with 1 week of work) and my left side (with 2 consecutive weeks of work) basically look “totally normal” now. Very different from legs which take many weeks to clear up.
The only times they got uncomfortable mid-week after my appointment, is when I would have to roll up my sleeves multiple times in an afternoon or evening while doing housework. My arms didn’t like that friction very much for the first week after appointment, but didn’t respond to the same friction the second week after appointment.
.
Because I got the opportunity to have multiple weeks between sessions this time, one week after my session I used a Cocoa Cozy cocoa/shae butter Body Butters (instead of jojoba oil) after a shower, on any spots that had at least 2 weeks since their last electrolysis session. It was really nice using a different product that made me and my clothes smell good for a really long time, especially since normally I can’t use the product as putting cocoa butter on a recently-zapped (or about to be zapped) area would be bad according to my electrologist. I did find out that it is much more exfoliating to use this product than what I normally use . . . it was An Experience getting dry dead skin all over my just showered legs after using the body butters, B| after I had already done a dedicated dry brushing session before the shower, too.
Some spots that had been zapped on my upper left leg raised up kind of like very big goosebumps when I used it, which was very strange, given that 1. this was the only spot where it happened and 2. the last time that spot was done was the 10th of January, so over 1 month ago, less recent than other spots that were fine with it. It was kind of spooky?–even though it didn’t feel like anything–and part of (but not all of) what motivated me to still use the normal jojoba oil on the parts of my arms that had been treated recently.
Plans for next session: Right leg, since that leg has so much less time spent on it than the other leg!
My electrologist really liked the graphic that I made (I printed out a copy to show off) :3
This appointment: 28-February-2024, 90 minutes (treatment time: ~85 minutes)
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,184 minutes (53h4m)
Areas tackled this session:
Right lower leg
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 5 hours after appointment.
Total time on right lower leg: 670 minutes (11h10m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: ~85 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~60 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: This week’s session was definitely an embodiment of “I forgot how miserable doing the legs can be”. It was really exhausting because it was basically an hour and a half straight of stopping my leg muscles from jumping around and being intrusive. It also could have been the angle of the adjustable bed/chair putting some tension in my lower body that didn’t need to be there? One side of the bed is better at adjusting up and down than the other, and for doing my right leg the less comfy side is up. I wonder how much of my right leg we can reasonably do with me just lying flat instead of sitting up?
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Despite the discomfort of the session itself, my leg probably has the least scabbing or obvious “I’m healing from something” look that I’ve seen so far after only 1 week from a leg session. It feels pretty happy when I brush my hand across the skin, and my leg hasn’t really felt tender aside from the evening directly after the session.
My electrologist and I were able to reach a good pinpoint with my across-the-week skincare. I was concerned that my skin was starting to have an itchy welting response again after showers, but after I described my routine (dry brush first; hop in shower and use an unscented, no essential oils body bar; hop out of shower and rub jojoba oil into my skin) we came to the conclusion that it was probably either the water itself due to the seasonal rain causing hard run-off in my middle-of-the-city area, OR my skin is just truly sensitive (as opposed to the “sensitive skin” marketing ploy thrown at people to buy products) and needs less friction. So we decided to have me try dry brushing on days where I’m NOT showering, instead of right before my shower, to minimize how much friction my skin was receiving in a short amount of time. If it didn’t help, then it was probably the water and obtaining a shower filter might be helpful; vs if it did help, then I’d just have to change what I’m doing a bit with no new purchases neccesary.
I also completely cut using a microfiber out of my shower. I had been using it to hold/use my body bar. The only reason I used it before is that I always thought it made my skin feel too dry to use the bar directly on my skin, but when I had a “buffer” of it already being sudsy my skin felt fine afterwards. I was aware that it being sudsy before even getting applied to my skin was probably cutting the efficiency of this particular body bar, but I certainly didn’t want the dry skin, either. Now that I’m oiling after a shower, that’s not relevant anymore.
Separating out the dry brushing and the showers to different days did seem to help a lot, I didn’t have any welting after my mid-week shower except for the tiniest part of my abdomen (which is usually the first to welt) , when I was rubbing some extra water onto my skin and then jojoba oil over it for moisture locking. So, it definitely seemed related to the friction.
I came to the conclusion that my response to the shae butter body butters two weeks ago must have been from the extra exfoliation properties a butters would have over an oil. I’ll just have to get creative if I want to fit the body butters into my routine once I only have appointments every other week.
That all is to say, I think those tweaks were also really helpful for my leg looking great after just a week! :3
I did end up switching to both only using my facial cleanser (instead of dry brushing and THEN using the facial cleanser) AND using filtered water for washing my face at night, though. I had to get creative since I have extremely limited counter space (vs my electrologist had a basin specifically installed in their home for facial care). I used that basin knowledge as inspiration though, and ended up filling up a quart jar with filtered water each day to pour into a clean bowl, and then submerge my face directly into the water and go BLRBLRBBLRB while it was in the bowl. It really reduced the annoying splashing that was happening when I was trying to rinse my face of the cleanser. It had been impossible to not get water EVERYWHERE before if I wasn’t using a microfiber cloth to “hold” the water for me as I rinsed my face, buuut wiping with the wet microfiber was making my face feel raw after one week.
It also feels weirdly pleasurable how my face ends up, after applying a few drops of my facial oil to my face post-cleanser/soak. Probably because there is so much more moisture to lock in.
Plans for next session: Probably arms with the size 1 probe? We could also do left lower leg, but it hasn’t been the greatest week so I kinda don’t want to do that right now haha.
Note because I ran out of time last week, so I’m actually posting this journal late: the “size 1 probe” I mentioned directly above in “Plans for next session” is actually the smallest probe, and apparently the smallest probe is actually size Two Short. I was given the impression that I was always having the second smallest probe used on me, but that actually isn’t true at all. It was clarified last session that size 5, 4, 3, and 3 short have been used for various other body hair. This would be very difficult to have just plain Misunderstand, so I’m guessing I was just given an extremely basic summary of probe size previously
This appointment: 6-March-2024, 90 minutes (treatment time: ~82 minutes)
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,274 minutes (54h34m)
Areas tackled this session:
Left arm
Right arm
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken 1 week later (oops) which is not ideal due to the quick healing speed of the red dots this time. I tried to highlight the dots on my inner arms which were still the most visible, but almost the entire tops of both arms got treatment.
Total time on left arm: ~115 minutes (1h55m)
Total time on left arm THIS session: ~40 minutes
Total time on right arm: ~110 minutes (1h50m)
Time on right arm THIS session: ~42 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~60 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: The probe we used this week for my arms was smaller than the probe we used last time on my arms–last time we used a 3 Short and this time we used a 2 Short–in order to get some of the smaller arm hairs. That also meant that it was more uncomfortable than last arm session, but it definitely was not bad. I didn’t actually fall asleep during the session but I did start nodding off for some of it.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Healing for this week was great! I’ve continued to notice only positives from how I’ve tweaked my routine: it kind of has a pattern of [shower & body oil day/electrolysis day] → [nothing] → [dry brush] → [shower/body oil day] → [nothing] → [dry brush] → [dry brush] rinse repeat. Sometimes the non-electrolysis shower day will be one day later & other things move accordingly, and sometimes when I’m washing my face at night I’ll rub some water and then oil on the part of my skin that was treated recently, too, to give it some extra love. It’s really nice.
I remember I used to feel like having a skin moisturizing routine would be nice but felt unrealistic because of how much work I’d have to self motivate out of nowhere to do it-- so it definitely has been very handy having a large motivating factor in the form of electrolysis healing, having someone who is Extremely Learned And Passionate about skincare that I see every week, and establishing it really slowly overtime.
Plans for next session: Left leg!
We should also PROBABLY work on my underarms/areolae again sometime soon, it’s been . . . . . exactly 35 days since the last time we did those actually, which is the average time we do them again at. There is so little hair expression, I am not convinced I would even need lidocaine for it. I’ll ask about it.
This appointment: 13-March-2024, 90 minutes (treatment time: ~85 minutes)
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,364 minutes (56h4m)
Areas tackled this session:
Left lower leg (general front coverage)
Right lower leg (back of leg behind knee)
Total time on left lower leg: 1,071 minutes (17h51m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: ~68 minutes
Total time on right lower leg: 687 minutes (11h27m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: ~17 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~60 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: Another “wow, legs suck!” session, though I was able to get into a more comfortable sitting position this time which helped a lot. My left leg was really struggling after an hour so we swapped to the right one, which was much better once some of the hairs closer to the back of the knee were done and we moved a bit further down.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Healing for this week was OK. It sometimes happens that my more inner lower leg scabs extra, and that happened a little bit this week, but for the most part my skin has felt great! Probably the hardest part for healing this week is that I visited my family this weekend, and my mom has eleven cats–I’m allergic to cats–so my body’s been focusing a lot of its resources on flushing out all of that allergic gunk from my system. (Allergy meds don’t stop the fact that the body still gets exposed to something that sticks onto everything, afterall.) So I’ve been pretty bleh.
Plans for next session: Underarms & areolae, then whatever else fits into the session. The post-allergy exposure symptoms rise and fall like waves, so depending on how crappy I feel I might not be up to a full 90 minute appointment?
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This appointment: 20-March-2024, 60 minutes (treatment time: ~42 minutes)
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,424 minutes (57h4m)
Areas tackled this session:
(Underarms/areolae had 1 additional week between clears; so instead of the typical 35 days between, there was 42 days between instead)
Right underarm (10th clear)
Left underarm (10th clear)
Both areolae (10th clear)
Left arm
(Click me!) Before photos taken right before electrolysis. After photos taken ~66 hours later. Photos of underarm progress, only.
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Total time on right underarm: ~294 minutes (4h54m)
Time on right underarm THIS session: ~18
Total time on left underarm: ~270 minutes (4h30m)
Time on left underarm THIS session: ~14 minutes
Total time for areolae: ~18 minutes max
Time on each areola THIS session: ~less than half a minute each
Total time on left arm: ~123 minutes (2h3m)
Total time on left arm THIS session: ~8 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~3 hours before session, occluded lidocaine to underarms ~1 hour before session.
Session & any discomfort: Underarms and aerolae felt fine and not very uncomfortable this session. I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination at the time, but it felt like my electrologist was working a little faster than usual.
If it was faster, it’s probably related that: it was day 4 since I’d visited my family (where my mom has 11 cats) for an afternoon+evening and my appointment was the last of those 4 days that I felt on-and-off shit/fine from allergy residue. I’d wondered if it would impact the session when I wrote my journal last time, and didn’t really feel like trying my luck with painful spots on the legs (the spots I want to get on the legs, are all lidocaine spots, and I hadn’t applied any). So instead, after my underarms & areolae, we went to my left arm with the 2S probe.
My skin was reacting inappropriately for the size & depth of hair that was being removed (it was reacting more like thick deep hair was being removed, even though we were removing thin shallow hair) and my electrologist came to the conclusion that my skin was still just too prepared to react to any stimuli, from my allergy exposure over the weekend that I was still getting over. So we cut the session short.
It was a little funny because when we left, they made a definitive comment of “no cats for you!!” after seeing just how negatively a few hours can affect my body even days later–which, I don’t like living with animals in my home, I would never want pets anyway; hence funny. To be honest, I’ve always thought that people who have allergies that keep pets they are allergic to, anyway, are just a little bit crazy? But it was really eye opening knowing that if I (someone with allergies) WAS one of those people who chose to have pets anyway, my skin would probably be too reactive constantly and I probably just wouldn’t be able to reasonably pursue electrolysis at all. Wild to think about. I certainly was constantly reactive and irritable to the point of basically being a different person, before the animal I USED to be made to live with, was rehomed ~4 years ago.
We also talked about what strategy to use for my arm hair at this point; some of the hair is pigmented terminal hair and easy for my electrologist to treat, but the hair that they’ve been using the 2S probe for is challenging for them to see and to make the insertions for. (I cannot remember what magnification my electrologist said they have, but I DO know that back when I did ask what it was and I was reading 48 hours worth of HairTell threads, I came to the conclusion that it was very good.) They also noticed that after 3 solid minutes of treating, none of the hairs had bulbs on the end–so they believe many of these hairs to be true vellus hairs. It’s not that vellus hairs aren’t treatable with electrolysis ofc, but the treatment time my electrologist feels would be required to get a visible difference in the hair would be extremely high and take away from valuable treatment time in the many other areas I am already treating. Especially since right now we’re trying to move to every-2-weeks appointments soon (because there is getting to be less to treat, but also to finally give my body more of a break after a solid year of electrolysis). I think this is very reasonable right now.
Around my consultation, we had me shave everything I was considering treating to see how long regrowth took, and my arms took a long time for the hair to noticeably replenish, 3 weeks. For now, I think we’ll have me find a good single bladed razor to shave my arm hair with, so that the slow growing hair (which is probably the vellus hair) stays invisible and out of the way while we work on the pigmented hair, which should be faster growing.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: My allergies stopped acting up the day after my session, but healing was a little bit slower/rougher than usual. Generally, my body is doing ?something? : my basal temperatures have been uncharacteristically high for the part of my hormone cycle I’m on, and the amount of body odor doesn’t match the amount of underarm hair that is present (normally there is a very clear tie there). Still, I felt dry brushing on non-shower days, and oiling my wet skin on shower days, was great general care for it.
Plans for next session: Various lidocaine-y part of the lower legs, like behind the knees, the ankles, etc.
This appointment: 27-March-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,514 minutes (58h34m)
Active treatment time estimated via photo timestamps (so apt. time, minus the time of settling in/photos/bathroom/etc): ~81 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
Right lower leg (toes, ankle, back of knee)
Left lower leg (toes, ankle, back of knee)
Total time on left lower leg: 1,109 minutes (18h29m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: ~38 minutes
Total time on right lower leg: 730 minutes (12h10m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: ~43 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine ~40 minutes before session, occluded lidocaine to underarms ~1 hour before session.
Session & any discomfort: This was a much better session. My skin behaved and didn’t welt up much; it must have been night and day, because my electrologist was thrilled about it and was very enthusiastic when I asked if it was doing better. Pain management was fine as well; while the toes, ankles, and backs of knees are all intense areas, I was in a really good mental space today and could kind of my mentally will my body to not get too apprehensive/reactive to the discomfort. Plus the whole “it’s been a week and a half since I was exposed to allergens” probably helps 
Some of the area we covered on the right kneeback is high enough that it’s in-line with the top of my knee, so I wasn’t sure whether to count it as upper or lower leg when I was actually feeling the sensations. This spot felt quite different, though–it was high enough on the leg that it felt like it COULDN’T do the muscle spasm thing–so the area was more relaxed than legwork I’m used to. It was an odd combination of “I can still feel the sensation, I can tell that it hurts, but at the same time it kind of feels ?good?”. Well, I will see what happens when I have a whole session on the back of the more upper leg, now won’t I; haha.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: The back of my left leg isn’t scabby or rough ALMOST at all (so it will likely be where we resume next session). The rest of the spots we hit are–because they’re extremities or just A Spot–mild-y scabby.
I’ve been extremely active mentally this week, gotten into hobbies set aside for months or more, and hung out with a friend I haven’t seen since the holidays; so with the faster speed of life it’s been a LITTLE harder to keep up with my daily morning drybrushing. But, any day I realized I neglected to do drybrushing in the morning, I did it in the evening–so I’m still determined to keep up on it!
I ordered more Jojoba Oil because I ran out–and I discovered that there is golden jojoba oil and clear jojoba oil. I’ve been using the golden stuff this whole time, but the very small quick-fix bottle I bought at Sally’s Beauty ((way worse deal than buying from HBOilsCenter, but I had to ensure I had oil for Saturday)) was a clear jojoba oil. Having an unscented oil is nice? I use an unscented, no essential oils, body bar when I shower because don’t want my shower to be paired with a specific scent; I want to freely choose whatever scent I feel like in the form of a post-shower mister. So, having a built-in step for/after my shower that was scented was a LITTLE counter productive.
Plans for next session: Lidocaine on the back of the left knee, and clearing that area+some of the back of the upper leg!
This appointment: 3-April-2024, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,604 minutes (60h04m)
Active treatment time estimated via photo timestamps (so apt. time, minus the time of settling in/photos/bathroom/etc): ~84 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
Left upper leg (overall back coverage)
Total time on left upper leg: 291 minutes (4h51m)
Total time on left upper leg THIS session: 84 minutes
Modality, thermo
Forgot anti-histamine before session (oops), occluded lidocaine to area just above back of knee ~30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: Looks like the last time we distinctly covered the back of my upper left leg was back on January 10th, or 84 days between the two sessions! We covered higher on the leg than last time, though.
Not a whole lot to report this session; I spontaneously realized halfway through that I had forgotten to take my allergy medication, but it seemed that while I was a BIT more reactive than my electrologist is used to, it wasn’t too intrusive.
It was a little more uncomfortable than last week, but I felt I was still able to maintain my body relaxing really well, and still maintain against the “accumulation of pain” affect that I was able to manage away last week as well.
There was only really ONE spot that hurt a lot all of a sudden, but I think that was a stuck hair that my electrologist pulled out from under the skin, and not an actual zap. Though we did! Get a couple of inner thigh hairs which are the ones that connect downward from my pubic hair (grew more of those hairs after my hysterectomy and my IUD was ofc removed) which ofc hurt more than the others because more power is required for the hair; but I don’t think it’s as bad as the lower leg after the muscle has been contracting for 45 minutes, and that’s an experience I’ve had many times ;p
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I have worked out so many times this week so – most sensations I felt over the week were related to that exercise hahah. ofc I’ve maintained my regular dry brushing and jojoba oil regimen which works well for me! The back of the left leg is a little speckley but I can barely see it, and I can’t feel them–so I think healing has gone well!
Plans for next session: The more inner upper left thigh hair, and/or the back of the upper right leg. Can’t remember if our timetable included both or one or the other depending on healing.
This appointment: 2024-April-10, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,694 minutes (61h34m)
Active treatment time estimated via photo timestamps (so apt. time, minus the time of settling in/photos/bathroom/etc): ~86 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
Left upper leg (back of the upper leg, very high back of leg)
Groin (got high enough it did transition to this distinctly different type of hair, also covered near the ‘crease’ of the leg attachment part)
Total time on right upper leg: 123 minutes (2h3m)
Total time on right upper leg THIS session: 59 minutes
Total time on groin: 27 minutes
Total time on groin THIS session: 27 minutes (wait, what? really?)
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine 1 hour before session, at-session applied lidocaine to a back left upper thigh/groin-y area about half an hour before we got to it.
Session & any discomfort: A very exciting session! To skip forward to the very end real quick: after the session was done and I had used the toilet, I came back and was like “seeing little red treatment spots finally where the groin hair is, is like the most exciting thing in the entire hair world :DD” hahaha.
Un fast forwarded: I wasn’t sure how pain for this session would go since I was in my luteal phase, which normally has a lower pain threshold for me, but it ended up being completely fine. Glad to see my newfound “maintain body better” thing seems to work well across the cycle. Well, next session’ll be in the early follicular phase so that’ll be a good test, too.
We’re getting to awkward-to-apply-to ahead of time spots for lidocaine now, and getting to some sensitive areas in the upper leg & beyond, so now the technique is growing to “bring the lidocaine tube so it can be applied mid-session about 30 minutes before it’s gotten to” to maintain pain management.
We started in a spot that hadn’t been lidocained (I didn’t apply any before the session) which felt fine though, not particularly painful, and ofc as we traveled up to the spot that GOT lidocained that was numbed to where it felt pretty equal to what came before it. It’s not ^completely^ clear to me when the transition to officially groin hair happened, so I’m not sure if the lidocaine was technically in that area, but I do know that when we took another photo it was distinctly that hair so that’s how I’ve done my timestamps.
The distinctly-this-is-groin hair (much of which didn’t have any lidocaine applied earlier) was interesting? Like, I could tell that the power was higher because more power is required for that hair, but it wasn’t like . . . super painful or anything? The zap sensation didn’t feel like it had any “travel” it is very isolated to exactly the hair spot. I had always been given the impression that groin would be like, “like toes or knees but worse”, or something, but it ended up being very much the opposite–toes and behind the knees are way worse than the groin section we did. Honestly, doing 30 minutes of lower leg is probably worse than doing 30 minutes of groin–becAUSE with the lower leg I’ve never been able to stop from muscle twitching, and that muscle twitching over and over for a long amount of time hurts a lot; but that doesn’t really happen at the groin. (There were a few times I could find it feel that it might? But I was very determined to keep it relaxed so that didn’t happen haha)
I also noticed an interesting thing where–once we were in more the “crevice bend of the leg” part of the groin where I had to lie on my side instead of my stomach–that after 5-10 minutes of working on the area, I veeery suddenly couldn’t really feel it anymore–and I was like “huh! I can’t feel it suddenly and, hmm my heartrate is kinda fast, and /feels face/ wow! My face is really hot :oo” which came to the conclusion of, oh that must just be adrenaline, adrenaline is a fantastic natural pain relieving drug. It’s almost like this part of the body is literally built to have to deal with and mitigate pain for extended periods of time, ^or something^ /giggles
So that was cool! A very positive experience overall. Will have to see how it goes when longer than 30~ minutes end up in the groin area. Oh there was also this really weird thing where, once the session was done and my body was adapting to that, I became in an uncharacteristically loopy mood (assumedly, because of body chemicals doing their job) and I was like “wow!! I sure should try to purposefully maintain acting normal right now!!” So Normal.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: I went grocery shopping after this appointment, which honestly was not uncomfortable at all–I thought it was kind of funny that doing lower leg results in more after-session immediate discomfort than groin–I would have thought it would be the other way around?? Sitting down did feel a ^little^ funny after a few hours of being at home though, and the “my leg flexes here” groin part felt kind of stiff the immediate day afterwards. It all felt really normal by the 2nd day after, though! I think the spots we covered look like they are recovering great–still a little red but very mild. Zits in the area heal slower & more ugly-y, for comparison.
Plans for next session: Upper left thigh/groin area.
This appointment: 2024-April-24, 90 minutes + some mention of April 17th
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,784 minutes (63h04m)
Active treatment time estimated (before photos from last week bc of consistent trimming schedule, so this is from gut feeling): ~86 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
Groin (very high on upper left leg, and some of the left side’s pubic mound hair)
(Click me!) Before photos taken the week before electrolysis, OR mirrored photos taken after session to fill in the blanks. After photos taken ~4 hours after the session.
Total time on groin: 113 minutes (1h53m)
Total time on groin THIS session: 86 minutes
Modality, thermo
Took anti-histamine 1 hour before session. Some lidocaine was applied to the “sharp leg bone part where it meets the pubic area” of the left upper leg 30 minutes before the session; then during the session, some lidocaine was applied to the left-most side of the upper-mid pubic mound hair 30 minutes before it was going to be reached.
Session & any discomfort: To cover what happened on 2024-april-17 real quick (because I was supposed to have a session that day, and would have posted a journal about it 1 week ago if it had gone normally) my electrologist’s machine decided to stop working?? So we had to end the session immediately once that was figured out (otherwise we’re just, tweezing!). Luckily, my electrologist had spare machines at their other location, so we’re not out-of-luck until this one gets serviced.
Having a session where the current wasn’t working informed me that apparently I can feel the insertions. I never noticed!
(The ‘new’ machine sounds like a fire alarm at low battery when the current travels through to the probe according to my partner, lol. It works though-- for sure!).
We --on the 24th-- did exactly the area that we were going to do on the 17th; hence my “before” photos for this week lacking timestamps for me to work with/me having to use a mirrored photo for something we missed getting a photo of.
Anyway.
I completely lost track of tiiiiime~.
Normally I would wonder: “Hm, what time is it?” at almost exactly 45 minutes into the session. So: if I desired to look at the clock mid-session, I pretty much already have my answer as to what time it was. I think I do this mostly in passive response to pain-management.
This time . . . I wondered “Hm, what time is it?” 90 minutes into my scheduled appointment time.
So . . . I looked at the clock for the first time, maybe 2 or 3 hairs before my electrologist finished up and took the probe end off of the handle that they were using.
I was so confused hahaha. I could barely even read the clock at first - I had to do a double take - since it said something so diFFERENT THAN WHAT I EXPECTED!
That experience alone summarizes very well, I think, that pain management was extremely good this session.
Like - to be clear - I could tell that the current was THERE (unlike on the 17th when it was gone), all the hair came out very smoothly!
But it was very very manageable, any discomfort was absolutely miniscule. Aside from 1 or 2 times where I needed to kind of “meditate into my head” to “reset” the pain levels mentally if discomfort did accumulate, it was pretty much just a bunch of unrelated instances of zaps in the background while having a very engaging conversation.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: The most hilarious part (to me) is that it isn’t the left side of the groin that was worked on, that was uncomfortable during the week following my session.
It was the right side! The side that we didn’t do.
The left side, where the hair is gone, is just sooo comfortable . . . vs the exact mirror of that on the right side where there is still hair . . . that hair just feels so UNCOMFOTABLE! to be there!
Like: imagine you were a porcupine, but you could FEEL - in the inside of your body - the roots of all of your spines. And it feels gross and kind of painful honestly that those roots are there, and you just really really don’t want these spine roots inside of your body egchkh–
Plans for next session: Which is why I am so excited!!!
Next week we’re going to be working on the more central left-side pubic mound hair with electrolysis . . . (and ofc applying lidocaine as appropriate)
And then in the last like, 5 minutes, we’re going to switch gears and sugar all of the pubic hair from the right side off.
{{The reason being: that way we have a direct comparison of how the hair and my body reacts; we can keep up with the hair on the left side without there always being asymmetry in my day-to-day life while also keeping up with our other areas (like we really need to do the underarms, it’s been 45 days now); and see if there’s any difference in success rate when we DO get to the right side (since it’d be Very Alive telogen hair only)}}
So I am SO SO EXITED!!!
Okay bye!
/giggles/
This appointment: 2024-May-1, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,874 minutes (64h34m)
Active treatment time estimated (based on when we stopped to do waxing instead for the other half + photo timestamp): ~70 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
Groin (left side of pubic mound)
(Click me!) Before photos taken just before electrolysis. After photos taken ~50 hours after the session.
Total time on groin: 183 minutes (3h03m)
Total time on groin THIS session: 70 minutes
Modality, thermo
*Took anti-histamine 30 minutes before session. Lidocaine applied to some of the left side pubic mound 30 minutes before session; during session, more lidocaine applied to the more central (still left) pubic mound.
Session & any discomfort: I was in slightly more discomfort this week than the last 2 weeks we’ve worked on groin, so things were just generally more sensitive today; but nothing too bad to deal with! It felt like it was starting to feel ‘challenging’ by 70 minutes in–but that IS a lot of groin work! I definitely prefer the miracle of “90 minutes easy groin work” that happened last time, hahaha.
We stopped electrolysis on the left side after those 70 minutes (so the timing was really good) in order to switch gears to waxing the right side. I thought the colour of the wax was the absolute best thing ever!
Waxing was less uncomfortable than I thought? I was expecting the waxing to be sharp in sensation (similar to electrolysis) but it was actually a very muted sensation, electrolysis is much sharper and intense of a sensation. Waxing is more of a “quick wince as the body can’t process everything that has happened all at once”. It’s not like it didn’t hurt at ALL, but it really is too fast and too much to actually process. I think there was more “shock” experienced than “pain”.
So yes I definitely didn’t expect “oh yeah, the first time I got waxed professionally ever it was a (right side only) brazillian and it was absolutely fine!!” hahaha. When I used to think about it, I thought it’d be like; super intense and warrant strong painkillers ahead of time or something. Nope!
(Though it was funny because I finally feel I learned what my electrologist has meant this whole time when they’ve said I’m a really easy appointment. It’s hard to appreciate being someone who doesn’t squirm around a lot and doesn’t scream and doesn’t yell at the person doing a service for me (we were just chatting the whole time–granted I needed to be given instructions during the wax so the sequence was something like “Chat Chat Chat Chat wax-instructions chat chat wax-instructions chat wax wax Chat Chat Chat” /laughs/–until I’ve had MULTIPLE services I guess.
Is it like going to school? You get an A in one class and it’s like “oh this is a fluke” and then you get an A in multiple classes and you’re like “OH am I good at this??” sorry one of my friends recently had finals so just thinKING ABOUT THAT–
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: Oh gosh, what was this week like . . .
On the ride home, the side that was waxed felt totally normal, there was just one little spot on the left that we did electrolysis on that was still kind of hurting
Then once the left side which was zapped stopped hurting at all, the right side which was waxed started feeling more tender
Definitely still felt slightly tender if touched after 24 hours still, but it stopped feeling tender by Friday morning/afternoon! (the appointment being Wednesday evening)
Then everything felt really normal, though the visual recovery for the two sides is so different, it’s very cool!!
The right waxed side healed very smoothly, perfectly visually. Whereas the left electrolyzed (is that a word?) side healed much more splotchy/scabby! What a difference the current from the machine makes /giggles/
It made it really easy to tell later on which parts hadn’t gotten electrolysis, because I didn’t think to get an after photo after the electrolysis but before the waxing. (It would have been very very early for an after photo, anyhow.) I wouldn’t have to do it if I took a photo NOW because it is wildly obvious, but when I took the photo I marked the difference with a Washable Marker.
Oh! and 6 days after my appointment, when I was glancing down at the scabs, I was like, “wait why are there tiny black scabs now???” but those aren’t scabs those are hair haha oops! They are occasionally slightly itchy (they ARE growing in in a spot with a lot of healing going on) but after a full year of electrolysis I pretty much have no actual instinct to itch them. I’ll just need to make sure to start doing dry brushing on the regular again. Things got so so busy for me that it’s been difficult to keep the mental bandwidth open for that.
Plans for next session: Right now we have a road plan for the next 4+ sessions:
1. Underarms and legs (and possibly groin depending on how things are looking)
2. Legs and arms
3. Legs (might be swapped with 2, depending)
4. Groin work and re-waxing the right side again
and then week 5, 6, 7, we’ll PROBABLY be working on 3 straight weeks of groin work. Probably another right waxing on week 8.
Exciting!! So much for our earlier plans to move to having me be every other week soon, haha. Those probably got obsolete once we added groin for certain and not having me do laser in that area, I’m guessing. It just ended up working out well for me this way.
This appointment: 2024-May-8, 90 minutes
Total electrolysis appointment time: 3,964 minutes (66h04m)
Active treatment time estimated (based on photo timestamps): ~87 minutes
Areas tackled this session:
(Underarms/areolae went 57 days between this 11th clear and the last 10th clear)
Right underarm (11th clear)
Left underarm (11th clear)
Both areolae (11th clear)
Left lower leg (front general clearing)
Right lower leg (back general clearing)
(Click me!) Before photos taken just before electrolysis. After photos taken ~4 hours after the session.
Total time on right underarm: ~306 minutes (5h06m)
Time on right underarm THIS session: ~12 minutes
Total time on left underarm: ~283 minutes (4h43m)*
Time on left underarm THIS session: ~13 minutes
Total time for areolae: ~20 minutes max
Time on each areola THIS session: ~less than a minute each
Total time on left lower leg: 1,152 minutes (19h12m)
Total time on left lower leg THIS session: ~43 minutes
Total time on right lower leg: 760 minutes (12h40m)
Total time on right lower leg THIS session: ~30 minutes
Modality, thermo
*Took anti-histamine 30 minutes before session.
Session & any discomfort: I didn’t bother with lidocaine this week for underarms, since there was so little hair (and I just didn’t feel like it) and treatment in that area was fine; probably “middling” as far as underarm discomfort has been for me over the course of these 11 clears? Which is pretty good for no lidocaine vs having used lidocaine before.
It did mean that moving from underarms to areolae was less of a ‘jump’ (since it wasn’t a lidocaine spot to a non-numbed spot haha), so those comparatively were one of the least uncomfortable clears. Not that it’s, normally an uncomfortable area unless it’s a ‘tender breast tissue’ day. There were also only 2-3 visible pigmented hairs which is very exciting after so much time between clears!
Legs are legs, they kind of suck, but I was pretty disconnected mentally from the leg sensation today so it didn’t accumulate into a bigger discomfort into time. But, my electrologist said, “this leg is done; I don’t know if it’s DONE done, but it’s done with ME” after 43 minutes hahaha so we had to swap to the other one. The back of the right leg was a bit less uncomfortable than the front of the left leg.
After session discomfort/aftercare adventures/healing progress: My legs are sooo scabby this week, haha, but not uncomfortable. I’ve only had one or two leg sessions in the past that ended up becoming so scabby. It could just be related to me doing more workouts than before (apparently in April, I worked out 19 of 30 days?? I had no idea it was that regular.) so my legs have more bloodflow going to them? And I THINK I had done a big running workout on either the day before or two days before this session. I know increased bloodflow is why my electrologist said that groin tends to be more scabby, at least.
There are like, 1 ingrown zitty hairs on the left groin side (electrolysis) and 3-4? on the right groin side (wax) which is interesting to see that difference. I guess we probably cleared at least 3/4x as much hair with that single waxing though?
I started sneaking drybrushing into my exercise routine (I do it after post-workout stretching), to make sure that I get it done; that’s been going pretty well for me! I didn’t have too many hairs stuck under the skin this leg session, but I HAD been worried about it since I wasn’t keeping up. Time to start that again.
I also finally got my Van Der Hagan handle and clear shaving gel in the mail (I could only find the butterfly blades in stock at stores, no handles) so now I can get started on shaving the arm hair! The plan was to have me shave arms so that any pigmented hair that is easier to treat will be easier to find. It’s also just really nice, and helps me recognize the difference between hairs that will be treated and hairs that probably won’t be (since they’re more like the extremely fine and pigmentless arm hair). Gosh, mammals sure do have a lot of nearly invisible hair.
Plans for next session: The plan is legs (arms aren’t an option right now, since they’re just shaved) though they’re so scabby, I wonder if we’ll end up doing a different area for healing comfort? I’ll just have to see!