Possible scarring..

Hair Removal Tips Legal Referrals
#1

I am skin type 3 male, 20 years old, have been using spf 50 sunblock for a month, and went to a laser hair center 9 days ago to treat my beard/neck. I have very dense hair, shaving once or twice per day, and wanted to give this a try. They used a coolglide nd:yag laser on settings “50 and 25” and it hurt badly. I was told these were low settings. After 3 days, I saw blisters entirely across my chin and a few other areas. These areas turned to scabs and here at day 9, some have still not completely fallen off. When I went back to the laser hair removal center after 3 days and showed them what happened, they said they had never seen that happen before; apparently, i’m very sensitive to the laser. My face looks pretty rough as of now.

I don’t think I would want to sue just for the sake of money (and I’m not sure if I could even if I wanted to.) However, if these scabs to turn to scars, could they be liable so far as to at least pay any procedures required to remove these scars? I’m not looking for a free handout; I just want whatever they did to be returned to the way it was before. These questions are probably a little premature, but I’m just thinking ahead.

#2

Does anyone know if such scars are also possible with electrolysis?

#3

Scabbing is not the same as scarring. Scarring rarely occurs because of one tough outcome for either electrolysis of laser overtreatment. With good aftercare and not REPEATING treatments that result in a rough outcome over and over again, you will not scar in all probability. By the time you bring a lawsuit, there will be no evidence or very little evidence that your skin was traumatized whether it be from electrolysis or laser. It is one of the most upsetting things that can happen to a client and a practitioner. There are ways to prevent this and electrologists and laserologists have got to be be constantly observant of the skin, highly focused and highly serious about the skin condition during treatment.

Dee

#4

Beards are hard to treat. The hair is very dense and coarse so a reaction like this is not rare. Can’t tell how bad it is without pictures, but swelling is normal for up to a week.

50j/25ms is not a low setting on a Yag. It’s a good setting and they should have used a lower one on this area if your hair is dense and coarse there because of adverse reactions on this specific area. That’s why we highly recommend to only get this area done with laser by someone experienced specifically in treating male faces.

It sounds like you had some irritation and a superficial burn. Most likely, all side effects you see now will go away, but may take a couple months. If you want to have any legal power later, you should take pictures asap.

You probably signed something stating that you take all responsibility away from them. However, if this ends up permanent, it probably won’t matter in court. But like I said, it’s likely that everything will go away and this is only temporary as with most superficial burns.

Electrolysis is a completely different method of hair removal. It removes hair one by one. You’ll have some side effects on coarse dense hair too, like some redness for a few days and possibly some small pinpoint scabs that fall off within a week.

You should really read the dozens of discussions on removing hair on the face permanently. There are a lot of things to consider. This isn’t an easy or cheap adventure. It requires a big committment, both in time and money (2-4 yrs and $3-10K). And if you’re a healthy male not on hormonal treatments, you’ll need touchups after you’re done as your body will continue to develop new hair with time. However, you can definitely get a result with either laser or electrolysis where you can shave less often and not have as much of a shadow. I cannot stress enough that operator experience is very important for this area.