Start of my Electrolysis Journey

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
1

Hello everyone,

Recently I’ve come across this site and it has been very helpful for me.
I am one, like many, who suffer from excessive hair. I have hair pretty much all over my body.
My problem areas for now are my stomach, lower and upper back, chest, and bum. I have started electrolysis just over a week ago on my stomach because I feel that finishing my abs first would boost my self esteem more. So I found this electrolysis place in Boston (i live near Boston, but work in the city, and this place is like a 5-10 minute walk for me…very convenient).
The lady’s name there is Val and she is super nice. She has 30+ years experience and she seems very confident with what she’s doing. She uses shortwave electrolysis and I asked her why she chose this over the other two and she said she feels the results for this are much better and that Galvanic is a really old method lol.

Anyway…so my first treatment was an hour long last wednesday on the 23rd of june. the pain was bearable…i was expecting worse. I have a lot of dense, dark, yet Thin vellus hairs all over my stomach and i want to get rid of them as soon as possible.

My goal is to get it done within one years…even if its like 70-80 % reduction by then.
I have pictures attached of my june 23rd treatment and my june 30th treatment. They were both an hour long.

So now i have a couple of questions to ask you guys.
I noticed that i have a ton of red bumps and scabbing all over the area she treated. some of them i still have from my first treatment and its been 8 days…so is that normal to have scabs that long? I make sure i put on neosporin and aloe vera moisturizing cream morning and night.

Also If i go in for lets say two 1 hour treatments a week for a year do you think I can accomplish my goal within a year? I want to be able to start other areas in between when i see that the reduction is becoming significant.

My electrolygist, when taking a look at the area she treated during the second week session was a little concerned and said i should hold off on bumping up to 2 times a week. I really want to get this done as soon as possible :frowning: Do you think I’ve been over treated?

One last question, Has anyone else on here done the same area as me or am i the only one? I was wondering how long it took you to clear your area and how often and for how long did you go?

Any suggestions would be so helpful!

Pictures:
first treatment: ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs

second treatment:
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8232/dscf0650n.jpg

sorry for the bad photos.

2

The red bumps look normal to me (I have similar spots on my stomach, though mine are a bit bigger since the hairs are much thicker and there are more of them.) As often recommended here, try aftercare with tea tree oil at night, and pure aloe vera twice a day.

Her comment about why she uses thermolysis is a bit odd. Thermolysis is the faster of the three modalities, but galvanic (all other things being equal) will yield the most effective results), as will blend. If the hairs are straight and easy to insert on, the thermolysis would be the best choice. If they are badly distorted, blend or galvanic will yield better results though it will take longer.

3

Your skin seems to evolve properly. If you have a chance of bathing in the sea, that would greatly assist healing. If not, you can dissolve a handful of salt in the bath water and soak for at least 30 minutes three times a week. You will see small scabs fall off within a few days.

Your electrologist seems to know very well what she does. I agree with her choice of thermolysis. She is very fast (the entire area in 2 hours). If the results are consistent with the speed, you’ve been very lucky. Congratulations Belle!!

4

The area looks normal to me. She works fast apparently.

I’m getting the same area done as well, but my results have been very slow to come about. It seems like yours will go pretty fast assuming she inserted well and all those hairs are dead.

5

@VickieCNY: that’s good to know! I thought I was the only one experiencing this. And yeah the hairs I believe are pretty straight

@depilacionelectr: she is pretty fast but she doesn’t get all the hairs in the red area. There’s still quite a few left. She does this because I guess it gets so red and she doesn’t want to overtreat a small area at one time. Although there is a fairly large area on the right side of my belly, about 2 square inches or so that she worked on at the last treatment and the hairs there are pretty much gone…maybe a half a dozen hairs remain.

@MagicalPrincessKitty: have you gotten the area at least a first clearance in the 6.75 hours you’ve done?

6

It’s complicated. I am only treating an inch or two above the belly button and below. I want to treat the whole stomach, but not until I get results on this important area first.

I have had one clearance where I was visually hair free, but my electrologist says I’ve actually had 3 or 4 full clearances technically, spaced apart over many weeks/months. In this time, I didn’t see a reduction in hair, so I stopped pro treatment on the area, at least for now.

7

Hello everyone,

I wanted to post an update to my third treatment I had yesterday on july 7th for an hour. She got a lot cleared. It is definitely less dense around the belly button area…id say an inch or so around. I know I have a long ways to go but I try not to have too high hopes cause I know I will probably start seeing regrowth in another week or so.

Anyway I have another question. Sometimes my electrologist would put the needle in the hair follicle and most of the time she does two zaps, sometimes three. Is this normal? Does anyone else get this? I know that the hair can probably come out in one zap but do you think she does this so that the hair will die quicker?

Thanks! Ill try to put up a picture of my progress later.

8

I like to try to find the energy and timing levels that will loosen the hair in one zap, however, not all hair structures release nicely, so I will do two to three zaps if necessary. She is doing this correctly and hopefully watching the surface of your skin. If she has not found the formula for loosening the hair in one zap, then okay, she can also do two or three zaps. She is in the unique position of seeing you and we aren’t. There are so many techniques for performing electrolysis and they all work in the end.

9

Hello everybody. I have another question. I have had 3 hours of treatment so far and I’ve been going once a week for 3 weeks now. I am doing a large area that is dense with thin hairs (stomach). Since I am trying to get visually cleared I amm worried that because it will take so long to do so that the earlier areas treated will start growing back and eventually go in the talogen phase again. So do you think my situation is a lost cause? I feel like her treating the dense areas she won’t get to the regrowing areas in time to zap them in time. If I bump it up to 2 hours a week do you think my stomach could be cleared in a reasonable amount of time?

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

10

The standard procedure is to re-clear all previously cleared areas at each session BEFORE moving into a new section. This way you kill all the baby hairs when they are new, and then use the rest of the session to make a little progress in a new area. Although technically telogen hair can be treated, a lot of electrologists don’t like to (or aren’t good at it). So make sure she gets all the baby hairs popping up in last week’s spot before clearing a new spot.

If you have the ability to schedule more time up front to reach your first full clearance, that is always best. There’s no reason to drag out this first step, because once it’s done you can drop back down to an hour every week or two or three. :slight_smile:

11

You should schedule long treatments as often as possible to get to that clearance. Once that happens, you come in to treat any new hairs that pop up. That’s the fastest way to get results.

I’ve had this area treated. All gone for 3 years+ now.

I would also recommend witch hazel during the day and tea tree oil at night for aftercare. Neosporin is not so good.

Also, do no retreat the specific spots that haven’t healed from previous treatment.

12

Hello!

Sorry I haven’t been updating this. Just wanted to update you all on my status.

I’ve done 8 hours worth of treatment so far, and I must say I am happy with the results. It’s only been just over a month but I think i can start seeing improvement. Hairs seem thinner as they grow back.
I am now going twice a week for an hour at a time. My electrologist says I should skip a week to heal but I really would rather not wait. So instead i am focusing on areas. I’ve done the upper middle part today and next week will focus on an area on the lower part. this way areas have more time to heal.

Also she said to put neosporin and rubbing alcohol as it helps to heal and keep the area clean, so ive been doing so religiously!

My electrolygist actually has her own clinic at her home. She says she uses an “Oldie but goodie”. She really knows her stuff unfortunately she doesn’t really get the publicity because she doesnt have a website. Thats where I come in! Fortunately for her i’m a software engineer and am building her a nice site and in return i get reduced price treatments!

If anyone is in the boston area looking for a very skilled electrolygist please don’t hesitate to message me! She is very good with over 30 years experience!

13

Hi guys!

I am back to give you all an update!

So i’ve done about 30-35 hours of electrolysis (I’ve lost count) and i’ve got most of my stomach visually cleared. My electrologist has started doing my breastbone and my bottom back. I believe we are only doing touch ups on the stomach area.

I can’t tell for sure if it’s working or not because I get at least an hour a week’s worth on my stomach (down from 2 hours a week) and since I am doing it so often and killing the hairs I can’t tell if they are growing back all the same or if it’s lesser growth.

I kind of want to stop for a couple of months just to see how much of it will grow back but im worried that doing so will affect my schedule and that i’d be back to square one.

Anyway I took a picture of my stomach and I was wondering what the experts thought of the skin reaction:

What do you guys think? Will my skin heal just fine? I’ve been putting on aloe vera moisturizer and neosporin cream to help with the scarring.

Also if you notice on the edges of my stomach and the top where my electrologist hasn’t treated yet…that was the amount of hair I had before i started all this.

If anyone is in the boston, MA area and is interested in going to see her here is her website: www.bartolohairremoval.com.

Let me know your thoughts guys! :slight_smile:

14

You shouldn’t stop for a couple months as that would mess up the hair cycles. You want to make sure you’re killing hair when it’s weak and new. However, that doesn’t need to be done every week. You can get clearances once every 3-4 weeks now.

Also, remember that you’re still going through hair cycles and killing hair in each cycle, so it’s hard to judge how far in you are until at least 6 months in.

Neosporin clogs pores. It’s best to use witch hazel during the day and tea tree oil at night.

15

If you can avoid missing a 6 week period wile working, that would be best. See this post string for an understanding of the growth cycles.
http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/8979/all.html

You won’t really see how well the hair removal is going without having a before shot of the area, a shot of it after working on it, and then a shot taken the same day at least one year after the first clearance was completed.