i am going to my next treatment very soon , this time with the gentlelase. i must say that the last treatment i did with the arion alex (14mm , 18j, 20msec) went very good on my upper hands but not that good on my shoulders and belly, and i am now 3 months after my last treatment.
about the gentlelase , i am planning to treat my fine dark hairs on my back with 18mm, 18j and my belly on 18mm , 14j .
now my questions are :
does there really have a big diffrence between 18j to 20j ? , what is the lowest energy on 18mm which will still have an effect ?
i want to make one more treatment on my chest which have many hairs which are already finer and shorter then i had when i started but i dont want them to be any more shorter or finer (after my last treatment with 14mm ,18j , 20msec thats what happend) , only to reduce their number , so i thought about going on with 18mm, 12j on my chest and 18mm, 14j on my belly so i still have reduction but not that much , what do you think ?
the hairs are only finer in the beginning. there is no way to predict what will happen by adjusting the settings (i.e. if you make them too low, it will just not do anything). but technically, the hair will get thicker with some, so don’t worry about them getting finer. it may also seem like it because there is less hair overall. also, if you’ve only had one treatment before, it’s too early to tell what will happen. a lot of hair will grow in with the next cycle.
on 18mm, 20 j is max. generally, if your skin can handle 16-20j, that’s best for good results. if your skin allows it, i would want higher settings on hair that’s finer.
i had 6 treatments before with couple of machines : lightsheer and then arion alex. until my 6th treatment i havent seen any improvment at all , now at my 6th treatment i saw the improvment i talked about and thats after 3 , 3.5 months so i guess thats enough time to know what is going on.
the hairs are finer in the beginning thats true, but they grow back and stays at some length which is shorter then from before the treatment , so thats my problem.
what is the minimal energy which might work even a little? 10j, 12j , 14j ?
14j on 18mm would be absolute minimum. however, your logic doesn’t really make sense. treating at low settings won’t cause a “different” result in the way you’re looking for. 1 effective treatment is really nothing. if nothing happened after the first 5, it’s basically same as only having had one treatment.
If you’re looking for overall, even hair reduction you should do at least 2 sequential treatments at settings appropriate of your skin type. This should be done at 4weeks to 8 weeks apart but not before you start to see some hair growth on the surface. Since hair growth cycles become synchronized after laser treatment, you should see some growth and realize that a lot more hair is in the actively growing stage (anagen) below the skin which you will only see appx. 10minutes post treatment evidenced by peri-follicular edema and erythema (goose bumpy skin) There will be laser light absorption showing below the skin to hair you did not see at the surface. That is how you would get the best reduction result. Settings shouldn’t be your conern. If you get treatments at too low of a setting, you might as well do temporary hair removal and not pay for laser. If you do 2 treatments in a row, close towether but no sooner than 4 weeks, no later than 8 weeks, you can take a longer break and see the hair growth cycles that have not been treated. At six months, after stopping treatment, you will see exactly what level of reduction you achieved and do more treatment for more reduction or stop if you are satisfied. FYI-all natural hair growth has a fine thin point when it first surfaces, so it appears finer. If you wait 6 weeks, you will see how long it grows and if you were to cut or shave it at the skin level, you would remove the natural soft tapered point and all hair would be blunt. If hair is allowed to come in naturally and sheds naturally, you will ultimately get back that “soft tip” fine feel to the hair as you will see when you reach your level of satisfaction with laser hair reduction.
I hope this makes sense to you.
MILHR, generally, the experts here agree that treating at 4 weeks is way too early since it takes 3 weeks for the hair to shed. There shouldn’t be anything to treat at 4 weeks if the treatment was effective, and there is usually only minimal hair at 6 weeks (except for faces), so generally treatments should be spaced 8-12 weeks apart for most people on most areas. As you indicated, treatments should be done when there is enough hair from the next cycle present.
Also, our recent discussions indicate that the “anagen phase” thinking borrowed from electrolysis doesn’t always apply to laser treatments since laser works best on coarse hair. So it can be beneficial to wait longer, when the hair gets a bit darker and more coarse, between treatments.