I remember once I had a really itchy recovery time and I needed a dermatologist to prescribe a cream for me. If it is bad enough you might want to see one. I believe my cream was desonide. Itchiness is the worst! Just try not to because of scarring. That’s the only way I could stop myself.
You could be having a reaction to the chemical reaction in the blend. Make sure you let the electrolygist know about your reaction because she is the only one who knows what she did and can adjust. Maybe you need shorter sessions.
You can’t purchase cortisone can you get benedril ointment or take a benedril befor treatment? this might help.
Have you tried ice?
Cortisone 1% and Aloe Cortisone are readily available over the counter items. You need an Rx for things like 4% cortisone preparations.
I’m in Canada and we can only get 1% cortisone by prescription. I’ve never heard of 4%. Wow!!! That must be potent.
Thank you to everyone for the good advice. I think I’ve turned the corner on itchiness. I noticed yesterday night that my thighs are very dry (I think I may have used too much tea tree oil) so I slathered them with dermabase cream. They feel much better today and look good. The scabs are smaller and the skin in between the scabs is smooth and soft. I LOVE ELECTROLYSIS.
I had another appointment for my face on February 24. I had ½ an hour booked but we were done, I believe, in 25 minutes. I did have some regrowth under my chin this time. The area under my chin was cleared in October/November using galvanic and this is my first round of regrowth. There were some long finer hairs and two coarse ones. She also zapped one or two hairs on the sideburns, a few on the front of my chin and along the jawline and then the dreaded lip. This time probably half rather than the majority of the time was spent on my lip. I was left with a little redness on my lip for a few hours and hardly any whiteheads the next day. I think I’m making progress but it really is slow going. I feel like I’ll be going to electrolysis every two weeks for my face forever.
All the scabs are off of my thighs from the treatment 2 weeks ago. There are still lots of red dots but I think my legs responded much better this time. I had no hairs this time growing out of the scabs (that’s good). There are a few new hairs visible and I’m really curious to see what the growth will be like at the six week mark. I was also able to remove 4 ingrowns and aesthetically that’s a major bonus for me. The last few years I had been plagued with many, many ingrowns. They always got infected and even when I was finally able to remove the hair I was always left with a dark spot (hyperpigmentation?) that took months to resolve. Of course by the time one ingrown completely cleared up I would have had three new ones. I haven’t had any new ingrowns since starting electrolysis on my thighs and the sessions seemed to help dislodge the old ones. I liken it to throwing dynamite in a river and then catching the fish that float to the top. (That’s likely not true but I like the analogy.)
My next appointment is in two weeks for my face.
You are progressing. Yes hyperpigmentation some people are more suseptable then others as you said it faded.
How did you resolve your itching problem?
The itching resolved on its own. I saw that my skin was really dry from, I think, too much tea tree oil. Putting on lotion helped a lot. I have to admit that I did scratch a little bit. There were a few times when the itch was driving me crazy and trying to ignore it wasn’t making it go away. So when it got really bad I scratched a little and that actually made it go away for awhile. Does anyone know why skin is itchy when its healing? I do wonder if there isn’t some benefit to a little scratching. Anyway I’m good for another 4 weeks until my next treatment.
Another face treatment over and done. No sideburns this time and a few on the jaw line, on the chin and then underneath the chin. Lots of regrowth on my upper lip and two on my bottom lip. (Here’s a surprise, not really…the bottom lip hurts just as much as the upper lip.) I had ½ an hour booked but we only went 20-25 minutes. She was running behind so the appointment was a little rushed. I could have used the full 30 minutes because I see quite a few hairs were missed on my upper lip. Oh well, we’ll get them at my next appointment in 2 weeks. I’ll also be having my thighs done (for the third time) at that appointment. It’s hard to see how much hair is there because I think it is thinner and lighter and now harder to see under artificial light. I live a fair distance north and at this time of year there isn’t a lot of natural light for me to see for sure what’s going on. I also still have red spots from past treatments and I have ingrowns and scabs and pigmentation from old ingrowns so my thighs are definitely not a smooth landscape where you can clearly see the hair. I should be able to judge any improvement by how long it takes to clear each thigh this time. It’s three months since I was first done so there may be some first time regrowth now as well as new growth. All I can say is I hope it starts to be less painful. I’ve used lots of Emla the last two appointments and I’m tempted to only put it on my knees and upper inner thighs this time if I don’t get too much hair showing up in the next two weeks. I found that as much as the knees hurt the upper inner thigh is, for me, the absolute most painful spot. It literally took my breath away. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Can you tell I don’t look forward to the leg appointments.
I get little scabs on my arms after I’ve received treatment which itch the next couple days. I use Dove liquid body wash for sensitive skin and wash with my hands (avoiding washcloths or loofahs so that I don’t further irritate my skin). It seems to help a great deal because it is moisturizing and easy on my skin. They also have a moisturizing body wash. Hope this helps!
I had 5.5 hours done last Thursday in two sessions. The first was 3 hours including 1/2 an hour on my face. My face was done 1 week earlier so there was less growth than I usually have after my normal two weeks between appointments. As usual there were hairs here and there except for my upper lip which, once again, took the majority of the work. I’ve had my upper lip cleared every 2 weeks for four months now and I have to admit that I’m getting tired of the hairs consistently coming up. I really feel like I am not making progress.
After the 1/2 hour on my face my right thigh was almost cleared (one strip on the back still to be done), which took about 2.5 hours. Moderately painful but I used Emla so things were tolerable. I went home for a few hours and then back to the electroligist to have my left thigh done. I put Emla on 1.5 hours before my appointment and when the electrologist wiped it off to begin work I could tell there was a problem. There was no numbing whatsoever. Ow, ow OW! I don’t know why the Emla didn’t work. Using the same tube I used on the second thigh my electroligist applied some to the remaining patch on my right thigh. While she worked on my left thigh I was curious to see it the spot she’d applied would be numb because that would tell me I’d done something wrong in my application. Anyway, her spot wasn’t numb either so it wasn’t the application. Anyway the second thigh took a little over 2 hours and then another 20 minutes to finish up the first thigh.
So, to sum up. My face seems to be going along status quo with very little, if any, improvement that I can see. This third clearing on my thighs took about as long as the second clearing. However, looking at the scabs on my legs there are noticeably fewer that there were from the second clearing. My electroligist was surprised at the amount of regrowth as she thought there would be less. She asked me when I noticed hair appearing after being cleared and I told her it was about one week. What she thinks is happening is that I have a longer growth cycle than the 6 weeks norm (mine is more like 8 weeks) consequently rather than clearing one growth cycle she is clearing two growth cycles and that is why my legs aren’t hair free for longer. My next appointment will be at 8 weeks (instead of 6) for my fourth clearing and we’ll see if that works better.
I have 2 questions:
- Has anyone had an occasion where Emla did not work at all for them when normally it does?
- I’ve read on this site that it usually takes approximately 18-24 months until an area is hair free. So I am plugging along at every 2 weeks on my face and every 8 weeks on my thighs. Will it still be 18-24 months until I’m done on both locations? If so, it seems a lot more efficient, and less expensive, do all hair removal on the 8 week schedule. Can anyone tell me why electrologists prefer weekly or bi-weekly appointments for the face but bi-monthly for the thighs?
The face has more hair, and they grow closer together. In the beginning, you could find hair to do on a face every 3 to 5 days. On thighs, you get to first clearance pretty fast, and it is all fewer and farther between from there.
it’s most efficient to get hair in anagen phase because then it’s more likely you will kill it on the first try. that means getting the most hair at the time when it just surfaces, however long in between treatments it takes you. that period becomes more and more spaced apart though after a few months. i felt like hair was constantly coming back too in the first 4-5 month, but now 10 months or so later, I only need 1-2 hairs removed every month.
You asked why emla doesn’t work sometimes
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When the lid isn’t tight and it oxidizes
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when it is put on over an occlusive like make up or body oils.
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Slowed by cold temperatures.
Wipe with a degreaser such as alchol be for applying emla.
Don’t rub it in.
Occulude it with plastic wrap. Non printed grocery bags my favorite. It desolves the ink and dyes you if you use the printed side. but it is self clinging and doesn’t need tape.