My 2nd underarm/abdomen and 1st chin/lip tx

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Hi everyone, I’m new to this board. Have been posting on two other LHR boards, and just recently found this one. Thought that I would copy my other posts and paste them here for everyone to read…

Written April 13th:
Today is my 2nd treatment for underarm and abdomen, and 1st treatment for chin and upper lip with Sciton Image long pulse width Nd:YAG 1064 laser.

During treatment:
Upper lip - only a few painful spots, not even close to being as bad as my first time with underarms/abdomen.

Chin - definitely more painful than lip, but very bearable. Most pain felt in the areas concentrated with dark hair.

Could smell burning hair from both areas.

Underarms - definitely not as painful as the first time. Tech was impressed with the change in hair amount from the first session.

Abdomen - most painful area. Had to turn the amount down again.

Whole process took maybe 30 minutes.

Right after treatment:
Upper lip - only a few small areas that were red, otherwise could not tell anything was done. No soreness or burning sensation.

Chin - red all over. Looks like there is some swelling. Maybe some hair is already gone, or maybe the swelling is hiding them. Areas look like they were snapped with a rubber band - swelling with slight dark discoloration. A few hairs came off when I barely pulled at them. Area feels a bit sore.

Underarms - are quite red and feel sore, like they are burning a bit.

Abdomen - is quite red, also feels sore, like burning.

2 hours later:
Upper lip - not red at all, doesn’t seem like I had a treatment done.

Chin-A few small areas around hair follicles that are red. Can see some hair below the surface. Area is still swollen and slightly discolored like bruising. Does not feel painful, only on one side if I push on it. Keeping ice on the chin areas.

Underarms - feel less sore and burned. Several small areas around hair follicles that are red and bumpy. Some overall redness remains.

Abdomen is less red, but there are quite a few hair follicles that are red and bumpy.

Tech was nice and gave me a few free zaps on the area between my eyebrows. Doesn’t seem like anything was done. No redness or bumps. Hairs do feel a bit more coarse.

Okay, come on shedding! :smile:

#2

Written April 14th

Hi all!
Well, I have to say that things are looking a little better today, but I’m still glad I didn’t go in to work. I took the next few days off so i wouldn’t have to try to shave the chin area for awhile. I woke up with a few pimply/whitehead areas, with only a fourth of the normal hair “growing” through the skin. The rest can be seen underneath, but it looks like some of it might be gone. I usually see a lot more hairs each morning than I am seeing today. On each side there is an area that is sore to the touch. Maybe where the pimply areas are. I don’t see any blistering or burning, so that is good. Just the normal dark pigmented areas with some slightly raised areas (probably from pimples.)
I did use Tend Skin last night and after washing face a few times today. I want to make sure that the hair can come through the skin if at all possible so it doesn’t get caught underneath and cause worse problems.

I have one pimple on my upper lip that was already there before treatment, but seemed to get worse afterwards. (That happened in a few areas.) Other than that, my upper lip is fine and I can’t even tell that I had the treatment done. I still see hair “growing”, but I think it feels a bit more coarse, so hopefully the treatment will work. The area between my eyebrows is also ok, like nothing happened except that the hair is more coarse there, also.

My underarms are still tender to the touch and are easily irritated. There are still lots of red spots around the follicles, but it looks better than yesterday. My abdomen area is the same as the underarms.

#3

Written April 21st

Well, it has been just over a week since my facial treatment. Still waiting for the mass shedding to begin. A few hairs have come out here and there while I was trying to clip them. A few I tried tugging on gently and they came out. It was interesting to note that there is no “bulb” attached to the hairs I’m able to remove gently. I am hoping that is a good sign and it means they were successfully treated.

The temptation to want to pluck is overwhelming!!! This past week has felt like an eternity. I have actually ended up working from home this week because my face is just a mess. Mainly because my acne is flaring up and I am having painful cystic acne on my chin area. It is not all concentrated within the areas where there was coarse hair, so I’m thinking it may be due to a cleanser I’m using on my chin that has glycolic acid in it. I’m probably allergic to it. Otherwise, I have still not tried to shave my chin, but due to all the acne I already have, I don’t want to add anymore to it.

So, I’m just waiting. Time is going more slowly since I am not getting out and doing much.

My underarms, abdomen and upper lip are fine.

There is still a little hair on my underarms that looks like it is growing, but not much and it is even more fine than before.

My abdomen has several spots where I can see the hair just under the skin, so I am hoping those go away.

Treatment on my upper lip is undetectable. No red spots, no black spots yet. Hair still looks like it is growing, so we’ll see what happens. I have been shaving the lip area down about every other day.

Another week or so to go. I really hope I see a difference. Hurry hurry!!!

[ May 16, 2004, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Ellen3 ]

#4

Written May 2nd

Well, it’s been 2.5 weeks since my treatment. Things seem to be going pretty well right now.

My 2nd underarm and abdomen treatment went great! Most of the hair is gone now.

I just finally shaved a few thin hairs off my abdomen and it has been 2.5 weeks, so that is really cool. I had to dig a few hairs out from under the skin, but they came out easily with no ingrown hairs this time. I do see some black spots still under the skin, but I’m leaving those alone and hopefully they will go away eventually. As it stands right now, I could be happy with the current results if they stayed that way for a long time. I wouldn’t want someone to scrutinize my stomach hair, but at a normal distance, no one would be any the wiser.

My underarms have a few very thin, light hairs left - probably the ones that were missed with the first treatment - and I am only shaving every 4 or 5 days so far. I don’t necessarily need to be hair free on my underarms, if the hair stays thinned out and lighter, that will be really nice. I used to never wear shirts with no sleeves because my underarm hair was so coarse and dark and abundant that even right after shaving there was a definite dark area.

My upper lip hair…hmmmm… well, it seems like there are some areas that are bare, and other areas that the hair is thinner and is coming in more slowly. I was shaving every day, but now every 3 or so days. I still have coarse hairs on the sides of my upper lip, but they are growing slower. If I can get rid of those, that would be excellent! I have a lot of hair on my face, most is thin and long, but blond. My sideburns connecting to chin area is long, thin, but a lot of it is darker. I don’t really mind it, imagine that! I am usually so overly sensitive about how my face looks (acne, melasma, scars, hair, etc!), but I realize that I am Italian and it is probably normal for me to have darker hair, so I am okay with it. It’s the coarse, obvious hairs that I absolutely CANNOT stand and that keeps me awake and stressed at night. If I still have dark lip hair, but it is thin, that will be okay. I don’t mind trying to bleach it. Even better would be if I have light colored, thin lip hair. That would probably be best for me since I have so much other hair on my face, it would blend in better. Although, I am shaving now, so the area is bare, so if laser removed all the hair, I guess it would be the same as shaving it all off.

Chin area is looking a gazillion times better right now. I would say that 80-90% of the coarse hair is gone at the moment. I hope that it doesn’t come back in or if it does that it will be thinner like what happened with my underarms. I am able to clip the thick hairs that are still there so that they can be easily hidden with a thin cover of makeup. Some of the coarse hairs that are still there appear to be much lighter, so maybe the laser level was not effective on those this time. There is a small patch of black, coarse hairs that are still there, but I think they grow in weird directions (like sideways or something), so I wonder if the laser had a harder time getting to them? Or maybe the tech missed the spot, but I’m not sure how she could have… Over the past week, while I was clipping, a lot of the hairs came out and I pulled on a lot of others to help them out. Some were stuck under the skin, so I had to help those out and they slid out easily. Oh yeah, and the dark hyperpigmented areas I had from plucking are much improved! YAY!

So, right now, life is better. I went out shopping yesterday and saw a normal face in the mirrors as I walked by. Sure, I have some scarring from the ingrown hairs, a little bit of hyperpigmentation left, but otherwise I looked like a normal person. Gotta love that!!

I’ve got 3.5 weeks to go until my next treatment, so we’ll see what happens. I’ll follow up with any significant changes before my next treatment, then I’ll let everyone know how my next treatment goes.

#5

Written May 15th

4 weeks post treatment:

Things are looking great!

Chin:
After the shedding at 2 weeks or so, there are a few small areas where the hair never did shed. Boo hoo. I was so hoping they would! I don’t know if they were missed, or what happened.

It seems like there is a little bit more hair now, although the hair seems to be less coarse. Maybe these are just now in the growing phase or they were treated and are thinner and lighter…I’m not sure.

I am sad to say that I am back into shaving my chin and upper lip. I didn’t shave for 2 weeks after my 1st treatment and decided to stay home from work until after the shedding phase.

After shedding, I didn’t shave for about a week - week 3. I was clipping the hair during week 3, and that seemed to work out okay, but it was hard to clip the few that were still thick and coarse and had not shed. They were a bit too noticeable for my taste.

Week 4 seemed like there was a bit more hair (thinner and lighter) and I finally decided it would be quicker to shave rather than trying to clip everything. I just hate shaving because the hair on my whole face is pretty long and it seems to me like it’s noticeable that there is a line where hair starts and stops around the chin. Hopefully noone is really paying attention, so I’ll go with shaving for a while and hope that the next treatment will get those coarse hairs so I can stop shaving and just clip the remaining thicker hairs. Here’s hoping!

My upper lip doesn’t seem to have changed much. There is still fine, dark hair in most places and darker, coarse hairs to the sides of the lip. I haven’t let it grow out , so I’m not sure if there are any bald patches or not.

Abdomen and underarms are doing very well. A LOT of the hair is gone. Just a few thin, lighter hairs remain. Very cool. I haven’t shaved for a few days and it’s not really very noticeable. I am hoping my chin/upper lip has this progress with the next treatment.

Good luck everyone!

#6

Ellen that is so informative! i am also in the process of laser treatment and your descriptions truly match mine!

#7

Thank you very much Ellen3 for the great descriptions! You are so lucky this has been successful for you! Keep us posted!

#8

Hi there! Thanks for the replies. :smile: My 2nd facial treatment/ 3rd underarm and abdomen treatment is coming up this Tuesday, March 25th. I can’t wait! I’ll follow up with progress then.

Take care and good luck! :smile:

#9

Hi, may I suggest you read very carefully ElectrolysisInformation.com very carefully before you have further treatment.

#10

My dermatologist does not recommend electrolysis. He does recommend laser and has a clinic that performs this service with a “Sciton Image” long pulse width Nd:YAG 1064 laser.

I will continue with laser to see how it works for me and will be sure to find boards like this where I can let everyone know my experience - especially years down the road.

I may consider trying electrolysis someday to finish up the details if any hair is left, but I will definitely start with an area that is not as visible as my face - which is what I did with laser removal. I tested it first on abdomen and underarms to see how my body would react and so far it has gone very well.

#11

Awesome descriptions - I also got a fair bit of hyperpigmentation - something similar to your case. But, am deeply consoled by your case where it all seemed to go away in about 4 weeks!

Keep up the good work.

#12

Re: Pimples
Hello Ellen, good posts. I also have a problem with whiteheads. I read on this board someone suggesting to wash before with SpectroJel. So I always do it now but I can’t say it solved the problem. The first clinic I went to gave me a tiny tube of antibiotic ointment to apply for the few days after the treatment – that seemed to help reduce the problem.

#13

Hi markov,
thanks for the post. I saw your pictures and hope that you are healing. Let us know how it is going.

Hi mike2003,
thanks for the info on SpectroJel. I will check it out and give it a try. Will definitely use some antibiotic ointment, too.

Wish me luck, my next treatment is tomorrow.

And good luck to everyone here, too!
:smile: