Thanks for the tips

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

I am sort of an old hand with LHR, I started in 2002 and have had 7 sessions on my back with the Lightsheer diode, starting at 30J and raising to 38 at the end.

Although it is better, its still not right, so reading this forum I now have a new treatment booked in for the 11th with the Gentlelase. I got the nurse to do my test patch at 16,18,20 @ 18 spot size and she says she is happy to do any of these. So Ive said 20!

I do have one question, when i was having lightsheer I used to shave my hair very close with a beard trimmer which obviously leaves a little bit of hair sticking out for them to see where to zap (we still often had lines of hair missed). The nurse is saying shave smooth with a razor the day before. When I mentioned this she said they treat the area and not the hair.

Im toying with the idea of taking a picture before I shave, in the hope they can see where they need to hit. As some of my hair is kinda on the sides rather than the back and probably easily missed.

Any thoughts from the experts?

#2

We recommend shaving 1-2 days prior so that there is just a bit of stubble visible and easy for them to see where to treat.

Can you post photos? Is your hair still coarse enough for laser?

#3

Sorry for the slow reply, I thought the forum would e-mail me when someone replied.

Here is my now picture.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/backtoday.jpg/

and here is my then picture from 2000

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/88/back2000.jpg/

#4

Thanks for the photos.

Although prominently noticeable, your hair is not very dark or uniformly coarse.

You could try GentleLASE with the highest settings, but you will still need electrolysis soon (in my opinion). Given that you already had 7 treatments with decent LightSheer settings, if it were me I would head straight for electrolysis, preferably flash thermolysis.

#5

Most of your hair is not coarse enough. You may get some minimal results, but it would probably be more cost-effective to go straight for electrolysis. This area is also prone to induced growth, which I wouldn’t want to risk with laser.

#6

Im going for gentlelase on 20J.

I wish your induced growth theory was true LAgirl, if so Id be having it done on my head lol What is the science for thinking that a treatment to destroy follicles can make new growth?

How long would you imagine it would take electrolysis to treat an area as large as a mans back, shoulders and upper arms? I suspect far far too long.

#7

John, it is true. If you spend long enough of these forums you will see many reports from women who have experienced this on their faces, or men who have experienced this on their upper arms, shoulders or upper backs. I had my hands treated with laser (knowing the risk) and now my little fingers have some hairs growing right on the outer sides. I’ll take a photo one day. Even an electrologist told me it was weird to have hair there. Otherwise, laser worked great for me in the areas where my hair was coarse and dark.

Or just google “Paradoxical Hypertrichosis after Laser Epilation”

Every body area is different. Some areas can experience induced growth, whilst other’s won’t.

IMO, your hair is not coarse enough. But go for it if you want to. It’s your money. We’re only offering advice. Not sure why we would want to dissuade you from something that will work.

#8

Oh I know it doesnt work well, but it does work in a fashion. If it worked well, I wouldnt be here 8 years later trying again for more reduction.

I did google it before your post, and saw that only 3 out of 489 patients experienced it. All type IV skin types of which you also are. Im type II.

I had my hands done too, they are 60% better. I think its safe to say that the hair on my hands was less coarse then, than the hair on my back now.

#9

If it worked well, you wouldn’t be back at all.

Even if you don’t experience induced growth, it doesn’t mean you can remove all that hair with a laser.

An individual hair needs to be thick enough and dark enough to absorb enough of the laser energy to produce heat in the follicle to destroy the appropriate cells. You can either max out at machine settings or max out at what your skin can handle without burning you, and still the hairs will not absorb sufficient energy. I suspect you can get some further results with an Alex laser but probably not enough to justify the cost if you compare with electrolysis.

Anyway, if the only point you wanted advice on what the perimeter, you can not shave the perimeter area. The tech should be marking the area and diving it up into boxes with a red or white pencil anyway, to avoid missed spots. My tech would mark it out and then shave the bits I left immediately prior to treatment.

Do let us know how much more of the hair you manage to remove with laser.

#10
  1. I’m an MD PhD with lots of LHR experience.

Induced growth, unfortunately, does happen and is a real concern. Since you are interested, the science is relatively simple to understand. Fine and light hairs lack enough chromophore (melanin) to absorb sufficient EM radiation emitted by the laser. Not enough heat is generated to disable the follicles. Instead, the small amount of energy stimulates production of growth. Induced growth can also occur when poor settings and technique are used by the laser operator. If you aren’t convinced, perhaps I should dig around for some photos from previous patients. Tons of testimonies abound on the forums.

  1. Not sure what you mean by 3 out of 489 patients experienced it. Are you referencing a study? More than 489 people have received LHR in the world… Not enough info. A few studies have examined paradoxical induced growth. If you want those, I can forward them to you. In any case, not a lot of clinical research is available on the topic. Compared to maladies like cancer or diabetes, induced growth from LHR is (rightfully) low on the funding pecking order.

  2. Skin type is irrelevant to induced growth. If the hair is coarse and dark, types IV and above can get reduction with Nd:YAG treatments. Induced growth is a function of hair type and laser settings.

  3. As mentioned, we’re trying to help you. We have years of experience with this. Ultimately, this is YOUR hair, YOUR money, and YOUR time.

  4. If you find an electrologist offering flash thermolysis, preferably MicroFlash or PicoFlash, the treatments are relatively quick. Your average electrologist, however, can remove about 5-10 hairs per minute. Since hair growth occurs in cycles, you can get a rough estimate of the total time and cost. Electrolysis is permanent, however. If you get full clearances, you can be FREE of all your hair in 9-18 months.

#11

Induced growth is not a theory. There are posts all over this forum complaining about it, and there are a number of scientific articles out on it at this point. This forum only automatically searches for posts from 1 week ago. If you expand it to 5 years, you’ll be reading stories about it for hours.

As explained above, you need to understand how laser actually disables hair. If each individual hair doesn’t have enough pigment to absorb enough heat to disable it, it doesn’t matter how many treatments you get or at what settings you’re treating. It’s like cutting something with a dull knife. Doing it multiple times is not going to solve the basic problem.

#12

This was the article I read and quoted from.

http://www.hairgrowthnews.com/hirsutism-hypertrichosis/hirsutism-hypertrichosis-laser-induced.shtml

Sorry guys, I had laser hair removal 10 years ago. I didnt have any induced growth.

Have I mistakenly walked into the forum where people put you off laser to sell electrolysis? You have to wonder.

Good luck whatever your motives.

P.S. Wasnt there a forum with a similar theme some years back, I cant remember the address. But the tag was something like

Kittys cat bird seat, let the fur fly. Ah yes found it, it was http://www.consumerbeware.com

Archived information
“Kitty’s Consumer Beware!” is a website which masquerades as an objective source of consumer information on hair removal. Unfortunately, it’s actually a censored mixture of truth and fiction maintained by a quack.

#13

People here advise what we think is the best option given the evidence.

Would I suggest my relatives to have Laser on their lower legs? Yes and I have done, and many have done it with great success. Would I suggest my husband to treat his relatively fine shoulder hairs with laser? No, it would be waste of money.

Why are you choosing to ignore the science of how Laser works and that your hair just is likely not thick enough. If it was, it would have responded when you did the treatments first time around. I have full access to the paper that article is summarising, including photos. Case 2 which is reported in it is of induced growth on a male type II upper back.

Anyway, if you do get further results, we’d love to hear. We have too many negative experiences on here.

If anyone has a motive, it seems you do. Many people including myself have benefited from the wonderful pro-laser advice given on these forums, if the hair is believed to be thick enough to respond.

#14

You had allready 7 sessions with LightSheer - look at your results - there is some reduction (maybe), but was it worth that money and afforth? Were you satisfied with this output?

And after this 7 session you come asking here for help an opinions and after getting some that you dont want hear, you say we all here are just some freaks that want to send everyone to electrologists and want just bad thinks to this “holy” sweetheart laser practitioners that live just for helping you with you hairy problem…

But maybe some of the people here were on the same train that you are, some are on a much worser situation.

If you think that GentleLase will get rid of your problem, just go there and after one and half year come back here and send us some nice pictures of your “great sucess” you will have for sure :wink:

And another thing - the fact you will not experience stimulation dont means you will have some results :wink: But maybe you will go for laser like I did - I used it like a substitution for waxing.

Maximum you can expect is to get your hair lighter, maybe if you will be lucky, a little bit less dense, but ask yourself if it is worth all that afforth and money - this qouestion you have to answer by yourself…

And you can look at my back 3 years ago - after 4 light sheer and 1 gentle lase it got that worse I had to cry a few days - after every treatment I got a loooot more hair back and the hairy area got expanded at lightning speed.

http://uploadpic.org/v.php?img=8N07u1x3hw

After the next 8 treatments the hair got lighter in color and a little bit less dense on some areas, but after every pass got stimulated new hair in the surrounding area…

#15

I’m with you JohnSheff. I turned to hairtell to research hair removal and I’m sometimes shocked when reading threads at how aggressive and forceful the so called “helpful advice” is given. Maybe it’s because some people are really passionate about their opinions but that does not mean that everyone has to instantly agree with them. People should be allowed to digest the information and make up their own minds and nobody should take it personally if it is not what they advise. It is after all a free world. I’m trying laser and electrolysis on different areas so looking forward to finding out the results down the road. Good luck with your journey!

#16

Oh, so now you think you can tell me that I maybe had some reduction (maybe) from two pics that frankly arent that clear.

I have areas on my back that were very hairy, now pretty clear. Ie 80% reduction. I used to able to sit in my car driving home, put my hand down the back of the shirt and feel a big mass of hair. Cant anymore.

Other areas had maybe only a 50% reduction. You will notice that the old picture is square on my back, the second picture to the side focussing on the areas that needed more work, excluding the clear areas.

At your age, there is quite a good chance that you were just becoming hairier as people do as they get older. Your skin is also too dark for LHR imo from my readings. I suspect this contributed to you having weak treatments settings and due to the skin colour the energy dissipated into your skin rather than into the hair follicle. Perhaps this encouraged existing follicles to active, combined with your age.

Later today Ill do another picture contrasting my start point and current point. Just to clarify the maybe reduction.

One thing I do remember on Kitty’s forum. Someone said, when people get good results they dont come back to tell you about them they just get on with their life. When people dont get the results they come back on the forum to moan. You have to take posts from top 10 contributors in that context I feel.

#17

The skin was black just because the picture was taken after in september after 1,5 month of work on sun - every day 8-10hours in Italy…

You can look on the describtions of the fluence of every treatment, the energy was more than enough.

Another thing - if someone grows a few hundret dark hairs on neck after every lightsheer treatment, I think that is not normal thing to happen. And I had allso some months without treatments, and there came not more hairs…

And noone wants to give you commands here - you come here, ask for peoples opinions and if you get one, you are irritated.

You can do your treatment - go to some experienced GentleLase lady and have treatments with 18mm handpiece and maximum fluence of 20J/mm2. Go there every 8-10weeks, before treatment you need to cut you hair to approx. 1mm to avoid ingrowing hairs after treatment.

My personal experience with GentleLase - it is much more sofisticated device than LightSheer, its much easyer to avoid missing hairs (much bigger handpiece), much less burns, is suited allso for not that coarse hair, better shedding after treatment. And if done propertly, for one and a half months you have a very nice hairfree soft skin like a baby…

To get nice results without patch, you can ask your practitioner to go trough the area and in 2-3 weeks to catch the hairs missed.

That is all can be told here, you just have to go and try yourself. And make some picture how it looks now, and maybe come here sometimes and make some updates and in the end some pictures 6 and 9 months after last treatment - personally Im curious, because everyone I personally know and has tryed laser did not get any results (allso my sister on upper lips and on coarse black hair on bikini…) And dont think I say it doesnt work, but such was my experience not just with one clinic, practitioner and laser.

4 years ago, I traveled a lot clinics to choose one after not succesfull treatment with LightSheer - on some places I just felt all they know about the devices is how much do it cost for them, and how much do they need to charge the clients - they had no idea if its really permanent or if they can really deliver reduction, dont know how often has a client to come (the more often the more better because more money…), just sign the form that you maybe will not get results, give me your money, lye down, and go away…

And another experience - in one very nice and proffesional looking LightSheer clinic they admitted that the hair often comes back… Allso got this confirmed on another place from a dermatologist that did send her clients to a LightSheer laser clinic…

So that is my experience and allso experience of many people out there - this isnt the only one forum, every country has his own and if you look at the people there, everything I did see positive there about laser, was just lightening of hair collor, maybe some small reduction.

And I dont agree with things that people that had succesfull treatments will not come and write one sentence that their treatment went well - they would be so happy that they would write an essay over their succesfull and happy journey. Maybe look at for example eye laser forums, there are allso many people who are extremely happy with their results, because it works - allso there are many angry people, because every case cannot be solved - eyes can have different deseases and disorders that cannot be eliminated just by thinning the Cornea layer.
Hair has just to be burned inside…

#18

Oh, I think you will find that the top 10 contributors are actually only here to give people advice after having successful laser and/or electrolysis treatments themselves. This is a forum for real solutions. Or perhaps you think we get some perverse pleasure from advising people against something that will work.

If you would like you read my about my very good laser results, with photos of some of my progress included, you can read through the linked thread in my signature.

I note how the science of how laser works and the post by JMISR who is very qualified and pro-laser are still being ignored.

If you believe your remaining hair is thick enough to respond to further laser, you should do what you feel is right. More than one person has given you advice on your initial question about how to make sure hair isn’t missed. Miro has even thrown in some further advice about appropriate treatment spacing. But perhaps you would like to go every 6 weeks instead like most clinics recommend.

#19

You came here asking for advice and opinions and we gave them to you. Unfortunately, it’s not what you wanted to hear. I don’t really see the point of wasting time here any longer. We advise on what we believe is in your best interests and have no incentive either way. If you want to believe marketing hype and biased advice from a clinic who wants your money, that’s your choice and you should go ahead and do whatever you think is best.

You can take our advice however you want and do whatever you want. It’s your body and your money. None of us are going to lose sleep over your lack of results.

#20

It looks like its time to update this thread. You may recall that I came here having already had half a dozen treatments with lightsheer on my back and trying to decide what to do next.

The people trying to sell Electrolysis on this forum thought that that the hair was not thick enough to respond to further laser.

Well here is my update picture. My last treatment was 1st of May 2012.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2362/laserupdate.jpg

Since all the negativity (which I completely ignored), I have had just 4 treatments using the Gentlelase all at 20j / 18mm spot.

As you can see the treatments have been very successful. Hopefully this picture will influence everyone to ignore all the negativity from the people who seem to have an agenda to sell electrolysis.

Ive made the picture super high quality, so you can almost see every hair! Yes there are some left, but they are virtually unnoticeable.

Good luck with your treatments guys!