Several purple bruises after LHR

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Hi all!
I had LHR in chin and upper lips and side burns, bikini with Candela and Gentlease without issues in the past.
This December, in a different facility, I had Alex done in my legs for the first time. I don’t not have the settings with me right now, I remember I asked to raise it a bit since I am good at pain tolerance and was not even feeling the lightest sting. I wanted it to be effective, I know legs are pretty tough. My hair there is coarse for the most part (shaved day before)
Two days after I noticed several bruises in the shape of dots 1/3 of inch in diameter, mostly in the calfs. In those areas, the fleshy parts of the calf, is where I had felt the laser sting the most.

I don’t know what these bruises are, I wasn’t told that I could experience individual dots because of laser treatment. Never seen it listed as a reaction.
I have them in groups of 6 to 10, they have remained dark purple for two weeks.
I did have existent spider veins in the area.

Also, FYI, toes hands and feet were treated, no coloration side effects noticed, but also there was no appearance of treatment done at all (no burnt hair smell, no hair falling after two weeks, normal amount regrowth in same thickness) the hair was thinner and lighter there to start with, over lightly tanned skin. I don’t think settings were changed for those areas. My impression is that laser didn’t work at all there, that’s another issue.
It has also only been one treatment so far. But in previous years when I treated other areas I noticed results from the first treatment. And no side effects besides some immediate, temporary redness that went away in hours.

Is this typical? Anything I can do to remove them? Do I have to change settings? Anything I can do before next treatment to prevent it? Do I need to change laser type? Will LHR treatment on top of spider veins affect/increase/reduce (I wish!) spider veins?

Age: 51
Skin type: I was determined IV. Not sure if that’s correct.
My natural skin is sickly white, but at the time of LHR (December 2018) I had an unwanted light tan leftover from Spring and Summer kayaking (covered, with 50 spf sunscreen :rage:)
Have not tanned in 35 years, very white. However technician said that because I’m hispanic I’m automatically type IV. This sounds ridiculous to me. My genetics are German and Spanish/Italian. I’m not dark skinned, not Central american… help here please? Do we go by current skin color or strictly where we were born, regardless of genetics?
Hair type : in legs treated, dark, corse, 1 inch long (was shaved 24 hours earlier) In fingers, light colored and thin hair, now almost unnoticeable against lightly tanned hands.
Follicles are very visible in hands, legs and feet. That bothers me, soecially in the legs.

#2

Forgive the many typos, this has been dictated as I am multitasking right now.

#3

A laser technician told me that she asks her clients where their parents are from, and she’ll even say “both parents?” to them. She said that she herself has a white dad and a black mom, but her skin reacts like a Fitzpatrick Type V, even though her skin has the same color as a Fitzpatrick Type III. I’m not a laser technician, so I don’t know much about how laser affects the skin.

#4

I have also had treatment done with candela gentlelase on my legs and after my first session I was also left with bruises all over my legs. The machine that my technician was using was shooting the cooling spray with every beep and she told me that it was the shooting spray that was causing the bruising. On the next session she moved me to a newer candela gentelase machine which sprayed the cooling air rather than shoot and with this one I had no bruising.

#5

Clinics overwhelmingly rely on ethnicity and reaction to UV to determine skin type, which is generally fine, so you may indeed be a skin type IV. The issue is how they apply this information to treatments.

The settings for the laser treatment should reflect the current skin and hair colour of the client undergoing treatments, not the skin of the client’s parents, not the skin of someone typical of the client’s ethnicity, nor the client’s propensity to tan when exposed to the sun. The laser light is absorbed by the melanin, and if you are currently sickly white or have a light tan, then you have very little melanin compared to someone who is very obviously a skin type IV with darker skin.

This is one of the reasons so many people experience poor results with laser treatments. Clients may have a parent or parents from traditionally darker skinned ethnic backgrounds, but the clients themselves have light skin and very limited sun exposure. The clinicians then lower the settings and the treatment is no longer as effective.

Having said all of that, if you experienced any bruising, you should follow up with the clinic and ask for recommendations. Bruising is uncommon, but it can be expected for some. Since this post is six days old, I expect the bruising is mostly faded by now. Continue to monitor it for now.

#6

Disregard this post. Will start my own topic.

#7

Your bruises are most likely gone by now but I figured I would reply Incase someone else’s reads this looking for answers too.

I was a laser technician for about 10 years and also had bruises on my lower legs from laser (diode). My leg hairs were very thick and black and I don’t have much “meat” on my lower legs.

My first treatment the settings were as high as I could take it and I did eventually have to turn it down because my tolerance gave out. I developed 20-30 bruises later on.

Unsure if the hair rapidly expands from the heat of the laser and this causes a small bruise around the thicker hairs? Bruises happen more often with dark thick hair on areas that don’t have a lot of fat or are bony.

My purple bruises were ONLY bruises and no scabbing. They slowly turned green and yellow until they were gone. It took about 3-4 weeks for me.

Another lady I knew also had bruises on her lower legs with similar settings and similar hair and legs as mine. Her bruises also were gone in about a month.

I will say the two of us had great results and only needed 3-4 laser sessions. We only had a couple bruises the next treatment and none after that.

Since the op mentioned she has spider veins and the laser could have heated them up and caused some pain (depending on settings) and they could bruise as well. Hard to say since no pictures were posted.

The previous advice of talking to the clinic you went to is always the best one just to make sure all is ok. Plus it gives the technician who worked on you more visual feedback on the after effects of the treatment.

I forgot to add that if the bruises do not continue to fade and they stay purple/red or the swelling does not go down one needs to go back to clinic right away and let them know. This could be purpura or scarring.