Hi All,
I am 3/4 treatments into a course of 6 that I paid for and thought I would share my story so far, on this excellent forum, as I am unsure of the best way to proceed and would be very grateful for some advice.
As context, I am a 35 year old white male living in London with dark course hair and (apparently) Skin Type 2/3 with no tan and 3/4 with a bit of a tan. I bought a package of 6 laser treatments for my back and shoulders at Sk:n Canary Wharf (London) in 2010, having foolishly done no research, and the following has happened since.
FEB 2010
- Came in for my first treatment. Categorised as Skin Type 2/3
- Cynosure Apogee Alexandrite Laser Used, pulse width 20, 15mm Spot Size, 24J. No EMLA, no painkillers, lots of pain!
- I foolishly didn’t check shedding or results, mostly as it’s hard to see my own back!
- For various reasons I didn’t go back for more treatment until this year
FEB/MAR 2013
- Went into the Harley St clinic of Sk:n, classified as Skin Type 4 (I had a moderate tan) and test patched on the Yag option of the Cynosure Apogee
- Treated on the YAG in early March on Pulse Width 40, 25J and 15mm Spot Size
- After this treatment my girlfriend noted that it all shed away after 2 weeks and I was nice and smooth for another 2/3 weeks until the regrowth started
- Used EMLA and painkillers as the first treatment had been so painful (I now know this is because the settings were much higher!)
APRIL 27th, 2013
- A little over six weeks later I went in again for another treatment, this time having been out of the sun for that time I was a little less tanned and therefore ST 3-4
- YAG was used again, on the same settings. After 2 weeks my girlfriend was telling me there was still lots of hair there. I looked and there was a lot of it still there. Barely any shedding had occured
- At this point I actually did some research, including trawling through a lot of posts on here. It became apparent to me that the YAG settings were quite low and that was probably why the first one had been fairly successful but the second one was not strong enough to achieve anything, particularly as I was not the skin type 4 that the laser is for
- We checked again after 3 weeks and it looked like almost nothing had been achieved, so I popped into the clinic. They were pretty good and agreed it hadn’t really worked. They booked me in to use the Alexandrite part of the laser to clear up all the hair that was there. I had a long discussion about strengths, settings etc with the tech and the manager. Test patched on 10/12/14J
- Again used EMLA and painkillers (I figured why be in pain if I don’t need to be?!)
MAY 15th, 2013
- I went in for a mop-up treatment on the Cynosure Apogee Alexandrite, as per the conversation above. They advised, as I still had a bit of a tan, that they wanted to use 40 Pulse Width, as that was safer for tanned skin and that they would go for 14J. I asked if we could go higher, but they advised this was strong enough, on 15mm Spot Size, although I did try to push for higher settings. They hadn’t test patched anything higher, so we went with 14J
- There was lots of singe-ing (sp?), a stench of burning hair and I got all red and bumpy, which I took to be positive signs.
- Again used EMLA and painkillers. Felt a bit of pain this time, whereas I felt nothing on the two YAG treatments above
- We had a chat at the end about what settings we would use next time. They suggested 16J and I advised that I am very keen to get the hair cleared ASAP, as I don’t want to be out of the sun all summer, and that I therefore wanted us to go as strong as we could. They advised they would test patch on 16 and 18J next time and use 18J if they could. I asked whether we could test 16/18/20/22J and then go with the highest that my skin could take. They said ‘we will see’
So…I am now 1 week past that treatment. We will see how the shedding goes over the next week. However, now that I am better informed I want to source some help here and some advice in order to make a decision on how best to proceed. I could of course carry on with this clinic and get a few more treatments with the Cynosure Apogee Alex laser before summer. My questions and thought processes are as follows on what to do:
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Do I go for a different laser and clinic. I see GentleLASE mentioned a lot, with a higher Spot Size, although it seems the optimal plan on that laser is to go High Spot Size to start and to then go Medium Spot Size + Higher Joules. I am wondering what the best laser to use going forward is given I have had 2 Cynosure Alex treatments and 2 Cynosure YAG treatments already. I have had no sun since January, although I keep a tan for ages so do still have some colour on top of my normal skin colour. Tech tells me I am a mid-range Type 3 now. So decision #1 is whether to stay with this clinic and this Alex laser or to go elsewhere
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Whether I decide to change or stay put, what should I be aiming for settings-wise on an Alex, on the assumption that this is now the best laser for my Skin Type? I feel that, apart from my first treatment in 2010 on quite high settings, the treatments since have been on low settings and that is probably why the results have not been very good so far.
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When should I get the next treatment in? I had the YAG treatment April 27th and the Alex make-up session to clear what that missed on May 15th. Presumably I need to wait 6 weeks plus from the ALEX treatment for that hair to be ready for zapping again?
My goal is to get 2 more treatments in, at the end of June maybe and the beginning of August, on the most effective settings. Hopefully I will have cleared c. 40% of the hair when I get the current shedding completed and 2 treatments on good settings might clear me to c. 70%. If that happens I will take a break between August and next May and then maybe finish it off then. If not, I will keep going until I get to 70% plus reduction!
Apologies for the very long summary. I thought I would give more detail rather than less! I would be very grateful for a conversation with an expert on this as it is extremely important to me to get results now as I feel I have wasted time and money to some extent with my treatments so far this year.
Many thanks,
Jon