Lightsheer vs. Nd-Yag

First of all, this board has helped me a lot with my laser experiences so I would like to thank everyone for contributing!

I have had about 6 treatments on my chest and back/shoulders with the Lightsheer diode, my chest hair is pretty thin now so I will stop the treatments.
I recently switched clinics and have been treated 3 days ago with the nd-yag on my back and neck (because lightsheer was unavailable), here is what I noticed:

  • hurts less than the diode
  • no hairs popped out during treatment
  • redness (if any) lasted for about 2 hours than disapeared
  • after 2 days, hair seems to be groing back as if untreated

I feel as if this laser had no effect on me (although it did hurt). Are these symptoms typical of the Nd-Yag compared to the lightsheer?

Thanks for your help!

please wait 3 weeks. it’s impossible to tell if that hair will shed or not after 3 days.

If your hair was made a lot finer by the Lightsheer, the ND:YAG may not be effective. See what happens after 3 weeks.

Which Nd:YAG laser was used?

RJC2001

Thanks for the replies! I think it was integrated in an Apogee machine, it had the cooler (cold windy thing). I will wait 3 weeks, before coming to any conclusion.

The thing is with the lightsheer I could always tell almost immediately wether the treatment was really effective or not. The fact that I had no redness/no pain/no hairs pop out makes me wonder if the laser did anything… or maybe that’s just how the YAG works. Did you ever try it RJC?

Yes, I have been treated with a couple YAG lasers. I have mixed feelings about it. For the beard, it works great, it would be my first choice there. Beards have coarse thick hair, which the YAG works very well on. You should feel the YAG laser when being treated, if you felt no pain at all either the hair was too fine or you were undertreated. The YAG does not leave a lot of post treatment redness, but it is normally painful. If your treatment didn’t hurt, it probably did not do much.

I have had a YAG treatment on my back but it did not do much. However, that was after several alex and diode laser treatments and the hair was much finer than when I started. The YAG worked OK on my legs, at least on the first treatment when the hair was at its thickest.

So I would say, yes the YAG works very well on black, coarse hair. But on finer hair the diode laser is preferable.

Cutera claims that it’s Coolglide lasers can treat fine hair based on its spot size and fluence levels that are available. I have never been treated with the Coolglide so I can’t verify that.

RJC2001

So here is what happened 1 week after the treatment:

Some hairs started shedding and others would pull out easily when tugged on gently.

However many hairs still won’t budge when pulled on, I tried removing some to see what they looked like (only a few) and their roots were visible. So now I feel stubbly and worse off than I was before <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
I know you should usually wait 3 weeks, but I don’t feel like the hairs that came out with the root are ever going to fall off…

I want to get the whole area retreated in a couple of weeks with the Lightsheer but I don’t know if it’s a good idea, I just want the hair to shed!

Sorry for the rant, I just wanted to get that off my back (pun intented) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

PS for RJC: The treatment didn’t hurt because I was using EMLA, on the areas that were missed by th cream, it did hurt quite a bit, but not as much as the Lightsheer.

Please wait 2 more weeks. You just STARTED the shedding process. For some, shedding doesn’t even start until well into week 2. It’s still too early too tell. Petience is everything. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly OK to shave. This is all part of the LHR process. Patience is key <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />