Long term result of serious overtreatment

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

Hi there,

4 years ago i started with facial electrolysis. The electrologist did massive overtreatment - fast thermolysis (not flash), clearing of all hair despite of an unusualy strong reaction of the skin and in some places extremly dense hair, possibly with pili multigemini, and she applied lidocain injections in some areas. Especially in these areas, permanent scars are visible:

Not visible on the photo, the skin of the upper lip looks simimlar to the skin of an orange, except of a small area below the right hole of my nose which has not been treated with lidocain.

I had visited several dermatologists, but despite of their efforts the inflammation lasted over more than three months, and i had to pause with electrolysis for about 9 months.

Meanwhile this part of my face has been cleared almost fully (there a still a few hairs growing here and there), and the remaining scars and pits marks are probably permanent, at least mostly (there is still a slight improvement especially in the area below the right edge of my mouth) and it ist time to learn about possibilities to improve the cosmetic outcome a bit.

The intention of my post is to learn a bit on the remaining possibilities of treatment.

Thanks

Beate

#2

The infiltration of anesthetic intradermally should not be a cause for there to be overtreatment in the area.

Your electrologist should act the same way, whether the area is insensitive or not.

As for the solution, perhaps your dermatologist can prescribe retinoic acid.

#3

Dermabrasion??? Ask your plastic surgeon or dermatologist. Electrologists are NOT trained to “kill” hair only to have the client end up with damaged skin!!!

The big question is who did this to you for God’s sake???!!! Was this a certified, licensed electrologist or some wannbe beauty therapist (calling themself an electrologist) working out of their basement? If anyone can understand anything about electrolysis, understand this: repeated overtreatment is not allowed to happen when a professional electrologist is in charge of your treatment plan. We all know this. We shouldn’t be injecting anesthetics and then turning up the power to blast holes in ones face. WE ALL KNOW THIS BECAUSE WE ARE TAUGHT THIS IN SCHOOL or in APPRENTICESHIPS. REPEATED OVERTREATMENT is bad news. Be aware of this very important talking point. We say this all the time here on hairtell. Consumers need to take some reponsibility, too.

Did you continue to go go back to this person even though your face was a mess after each treatment? The consumer needs to follow their best instincts and those instincts should be backed up with research they have done. This picture is not the norm. It is a rare exception and that is why I would like to know if a licensed electrologist was doing your treatments or was it someone who got a hold of an epilator and was doing your a favor by helping you out with beard removal. Just curious how this all came down because it is very intense skin outcome and totally unjustified.

If anyone in Germany is looking for an electrologist, be careful that you don’t run into this person. Private message Beate and maybe a name will be shared so you don’t end up on the table of Beate’s “practitioner”.

Dee

#4

Ok, some additional info: before electrolysis i have obtaines 10 sessions of IPL. Despite fairly high intensity there was about 66-75% regrowth, most of it with hairs shot white. As i notices later, the follicles of the white hair have strucural changes (deformed, less humidity and thus needing more energy to treat).

The electrolysis catastrophe occured about 8 weeks after the last IPL session. It hurt 3 months, but i lost 2 months of searching until i found a dermatologist willing to treat me.

The practitioner responsible for the scarring is in business for more than 15 years. She is one of currently three practitioners immediately in Frankfurt/Main, and she is still doing most of the regional transgender treatment. She is not certified. Certification is, however, extremly rare here in Germany - AFAIK, only three practitioners have obtained the CPE. And meanwhile, there are three other practitioners in the surroundings of Frankfurt, inlcuding myself as a newcomer (and still beginner), one of us is CPE and the majority of us is member of the Fachverband Elektrologie, which demands for at least reasonably good training or positively proven practice.

Despite of my own professional engagement i am offering to give the addresses of all practitioners in the Rhein-Main area to people who are interested.

Beate

#5

Sigh.

The good news is, I do believe that you will be a top-notch electrologist after what you have suffered because you are a walking example of permanent scarring done by an incompetent electrologist. We always say that it is skill that matters. The big term ‘ELECTROLYSIS’ is not synomous with scarring - it is the human being performing electrolysis incorrectly that causes scarring.

To move on to the future, I would advise any neophyte to get the best brand epilator choices on the market today. I am well satisfied and excited with what I use (the Apilus Platinum), but there are other brands that will serve you well. Always continue to learn, ask questions, re-train and evaluate your work to the point where you should be harsh on yourself if your client’s skin reaction is too rough. Change strategy if necessary. Never allow this to happen to any of your clients.

Someone should try to reach out to the practitioner that did this to you with the purpose of helping her. Her work reflects poorly on the electrolysis profession and in particular, it may harm the other great electrologists in your locale, if not your country. James has pictures on his website of what good transgender care looks like in the end.

Dee

#6

Hi:

At this stage you may want to try microdermabrasion
as has been suggested.

I’ve had a couple of treatments of it myself and found it
helped somewhat.

Alicia

#7

beate you have private message :wink:

#8

I’m sorry this happend to you. Did you notice the scars during treatment or did they appeared after you stopped the treatments?

#9

Vitamin C helps the body build skin. Collagen is very dependant on vitamin C intake. You may want to do 3 months where you get a good supply of vitamins A,C & E daily, so that your skin can heal as best it can. It will take 3 to 9 months for this to resolve though. As a water soluble vitamin, C needs to be taken throughout the day. You can’t just take what ever daily dose you want once and call it a day. You must take it every 4 to 6 hours at least. Vitamins, A and E can be taken in the morning and at bedtime.

I don’t know how far the Codex regulations have gotten in Germany, but you may find it hard to get theraputic doses of these vitamins. Governments around the world are slowly adopting rules that limit, or bar access to these nutrients. I heard that in England one can’t get Vitamin C in pill form higher than 95 millagrams, but I don’t know how true that is.

#10

My concern is about calling all skin imperfections “scarring” and perhaps I misunderstand the original post. People who have excess hair often have oily skin and orange peel textured skin.

Was the photo taken with lighting that would enhance any skin texture? Your skin looks very nice on your website photo.

I’ve seen many people come in for the first time with pitting in the area of the hairs. We all know that tweezing and picking can cause pitting in the skin. Aging can also cause skin imperfections to be more apparent.

That said, there does appear to be some pitting on your chin (your right side) but the line on your left side could be from a sleeping position, as that can cause lines in the skin.

Congratulations on joining our wonderful profession. Your website is very nice and you appear very approachable.

#11

On my website photo i wear 2 layers of camouflage and pore filler as makeup, and the photographer seems to have smoothed those areas a bit with photoshop…
on the oher hand, the photo i have shown has taken as to enhance the effects a bit in order to visualize them, which was partly successful, but partly even smoothed out things a bit.

Well of course there are also signs of aging, and a few other pit marks elsewhere in the face. The don’t affect passing and therefore are not of much concern to me. Quite surprisingly and luckily almost all traces of akne have been levelled out over the decades.

I am mostly concerned about the regions 1,2,3,4,8 and 7. These leave a permanent trace of my former beard in my face which is rather visible in many lighting situations - even when i wear makup.
Actually the result is responsible for the rather subtle difference between passing without wearing makeup and not passing (i do mostly not pass without makup), and it makes me look older by about 5-10 years.

In order to be able to be more precise, let me show another version of the photo i have taken on Nov 11:

Most damaging occured in regions 1,2,4, and 3. The linear structures visible in 1 an 4 are the traces of deep lidocain injections below the skin, 2 is a hole from where she injected the lidocain radially. The linear structure extending it is actually a fairly recent effect of aging.

Region 8 is a scar i cut into my face by a shaving accident, but it has been deepened a lot because the electrologist used the structure as a starting point of the lidocain injections as well. All of these structures have filled a lot, but unfortunately a bit irregularly.

Region 3 contains a structure where the skin has lost its color.

Not really visible is what happened on the upper lip - it is actually smoothed by the lighting: region 6 has been cleared almost perfectly. That was the region where i asked not to apply lidocain. The adjacent regions 7 show a significantly different structure of the skin - much more irregular despite some effects of age and a few pits falling into my own responsibility. Similarly region 5 where there have been many white hairs with follicles partly damaged by IPL.

Should i mention that in Germany electrologists are not allowed to inject lidocain at all?

Beate

#12

I don’t know of any states here who allow electrologists to inject ANYTHING…but I have had clients go to the dentist for infiltrations of Novocaine. The chance of overtreatment exists with or without that, but the risk of pitting from injections does not, since it is done inside the mouth.

Regarding with or without make-up…join the crowd, as I certainly think “I” look better WITH!

#13

Barbara, yes, dentist - a good idea. I did that later on when she worked on my upper and lower lip, it lasted for more than two hours, and i usually fell asleep during those sessions :wink:
Meanwhile i learned that i can entirely avoid ANYTHING against pain for up to 3 hours if the parameters are adjusted optimally; especially on my lips there is much less energy needed as it is for the thick, deep and IPL-damaged follicles below my chin (roughly a quarter). But she used a one-size-fits-all approach :frowning:

Regarding makeup - i usually do wear makeup, at least a minimal one. Anyway, as a transwoman i’d like to pass even without needing to wear makeup … which is usually not a necessity for most other women.

#14

James E. Schuster MD lectures about tissue injury in a video presentation. He summarizes dermal contraction scars as follows:

“Dermal contraction scars can appear as accentuation of normal surface corrugation of the upper lip (rhagedes). We do not believe that electrolysis causes this problem, but that extensive work on the upper lip in patrons prone to rhagedes can add slightly to this problem which normally is caused by heredity, habit and sun damage.”

That can explain some areas, I suppose, but the areas you circled, you seem to know about their history very well and if your skin did not look like this or even close to this prior to getting numbing injections with electrolysis, then what other conclusion is there. We don’t have a before electrolysis picture to compare this to so we can see the condition of your skin before electrolysis was begun. Besides, the beard would have hidden the skin. Injecting anesthetics is serious stuff and I am understanding that the you were injected dermally, not through the mucous membrane (nerve block) inside the mouth.

#15

Hi Beate_r,

I send you a private mesage if can please read that.And I have a question the lady who did your electrolysis treatment was also registered with Fachverband Elektrologie.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Jimmy

#16

Hi, maybe a TCA peel would help you. I have seen awesome effects from them. I’m sorry for your misfortune.

#17

Well, in order to give a continuation: two weeks ago i was finally visiting a cosmetic surgeon also advertising treatment of acne scars. She suggested to punch out the deepest scars completly, thoroughly suturing and in the same session of treatment removing the epidermis of the whole area with a (CO2?) laser, enforcing a deep renewal of the skin.

While this approach appears plausible to me, i am still afraid that the new epidermis will be colored differently for ever of over years and not only during an appropriate healing time of several months. And i would like to learn more about this idea.

Beate

#18

Hello,
Sorry this happened to you. I agree that C02 laser sounds like a good choice for you–microdermabrasion is really quite superficial and will not effectively treat those scars. I have never heard of skin discoloration as a common side effect of c02 lasers. A good resource for you may be realself.com or makemeheal.com to ask more questions about these lasers.

#19

I don’t get it. Are those scars from electrolysis itself or from the injections you had ? But i don’t understand how injections cause such scars with no current so my guess is that electrolysis is the cause of this. Would you agree ?

Thanks for sharing your experience.