I am really disillusioned right now and feel pretty miserable.
I feel like this place is not right for me. I feel like they are not really taking this very seriously. This is like a punch in the stomach. I have invested so much time into this and it took so long to find a doctor and to convince the insurance to pay it and now this. This is such a huge disappointment.
I had my first treatment today and nothing went the way I wanted it. First of all it went totally fast! One but cheek took maybe 2 minutes and I felt almost nothing! I also donât know how much energy was used. There was no introduction or explanation. She simply started. All I felt was a lot of cool air but I cannot imagine that the air cooling is so strong that you do not feel anything. I mean I felt a bit but it was nothing like a stinging and I read that if you do not feel anything then it also isnât effective. And I still have all the stubbles. The skin isnât even red. I feel like this is a joke. And the area between the cheeks wasnât even really treated. The butt was lasered but this didnât even matter to me. I didnât do this for cosmetic reasons, I did it because the hair problems. Only at the end she slightly pulled the cheeks apart and lasered a bit but this can impossibly have been enough time to treat the whole area and she also didnât pull it apart enough to really have âaccessâ to the whole area. Iâm also not completely dumb and in order to really have the whole area accessable you have to pull quite a lot.
I donât know why. Maybe she was trying to finish it fast or maybe she didnât want to but when I came there the first time I told the doctor what my problem is and also asked if the area around the anus can be treated and he said yes. Lasering the butt cheek doesnât help me at all. If they are not willing to really take this seriously then this is not where I want to go. This makes me angry.
And then she told me that she will try to use a bit more energy every time. Does this make sense? I donât think so.
I donât even know how much was used this time. What if it was way too little? Is it possible then that all the hair grows back thinner but that it was totally uneffective and also counterproductive because the hair is now thinner and I have basically wasted 1 chance to destroy hair and next time the hair will already be thinner?
This is very frustrating. I am not doing this for fun and I donât want to waste my time and my money. Even though the insurance pays it itâs still way too important.
What do you guys say about this? Do you think that this was actually negative for the hair if the energy was too low?
And what happens if a mole is exposed to laser? I have a small mole on the cheek and I donât know if she also lasered the mole. Would this be dangerous?
as for using more energy each time, that makes sense. If you do the treatments close enough together, you will likely have less hair (loss due to shedding both permanent and not) and so you can apply more energy (since the hair density is not as high) and not have to worry as much about skin damage.
This is a very sensitive area (I have had this done a few times) and trust me, you are better off starting lower than too high.
Redness after my treatments is usually gone later that day or sometime during the next.
Each time you treat an area no matter if the hair is killed because itâs in the right phase or not the hair gets thinner. This means that those hairs which are not killed grow back a bit thinner each time. And since only hair can be treated with a laser which has a certain thickness this means that you only have a limited amount of treatments until the remaining hairs become so thin that they cannot be treated anymore and this means that you gotta use as much energy as possible. And it was really not painful at all. Later when I got home I looked at the skin and it wasnât even red.
And even if the energy was right then it still upsets me that she didnât treat the area between the cheeks because this is what really matters. I donât care if I have hair on my butt because this hair doesnât cause problems. What causes problems is the hair between the cheeks which is exposed to friction. This is what it was all about and I donât understand how it is possible that I go there and describe my problems to the doctor and he says yes and then when I go back she doesnât even really seem to know why Iâm here. This isnât professional. I have lost my trust in this office. And what also totally bothered me is that everything went so quickly. No explanations, no instructions, no advice. This doesnât look professional either. Usually you should be explained how much energy is used and how it works and so on but no information was given at all.
donât worry so much if only because at least your insurance is paying for the treatments. everyone else on the forum just ends up wasting the money if they have an ineffective treatment.
you should always feel free to speak up. if they donât say anything, start the conversation yourself about what exactly you would like treated. also, you can ask what settings are being used (joules, spot size, pulse). clinics donât normally offer the information on settings since they assume the numbers donât mean anything to most consumers, and they would be right.
donât worry about making the hair thinner with one treatment. it doesnât really work that way. it takes a number of treatments to get to that point since youâre only affecting a portion of the hair with each treatment. the rest is dormant.
-if this is worrying you, you need to do a couple things. first, call and speak to the doctor and discuss your concerns about them not treating the entire area you want done. they would probably offer a touch-up. also, ask what settings were used. they usually write them down in your chart.
but the problem is that i really do not have much trust anymore.
somehow a lot of things bothered me today and when all these things come together i simply have the impression that even though they are using a laser in their office doesnât mean that they are good at it. a lot of dermatologists jump on the âi remove hair,wrinkles and everything else which you can remove with a laserâ bandwagon simply because itâs profitable. but this doesnât mean they know what they are doing + not the doctor does the laser treatment itâs simply an assistant! how do i know that she knows what she is doing and that she wasnât just told where the on/off button is and how to hold the laser device?
ASK! Ask her what her training and qualifications are. And if she isnât doing the exact area you want done, tell her. She canât read your mind. And if the doctor only wrote âbuttocksâ on your chartâŚthatâs all sheâs going to assume you want done.
Communications is the key. Youâve expressed fear in trusting the professionals here and on the other forum. And youâve been given great advice and information. Now take control of your situation and communicate with those providing you service.
There has been some studies looking at this. I donât think anything has been published but they have been reported and discussed at medical meetings (one of the reason why not everything about laser hair removal is in the literature). But some attempts have been made to purposefully laser moles to see if biochemical changes that can signal damage that can become malignant is present after lasering. They found nothing.
This is known as a negative result. Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to get a negative result published. Had they found something, it would be published. One of the well known problems with the medical literature.
What youâre saying is stated in the FAQs exactly and many times on this forum. Just because someone is a doctor and/or has a laser doesnât mean they know anything about hair removal. Thatâs why we recommend checking out 3-5 places before making a decision on the clinic.
Either way, I agree with Choice. You should call and ask for the specifics that I told you about and discuss what happened with the doctor and see if theyâre willing to fix it. If you didnât say anything during the treatment, she might not have known what areas you wanted treated exactly. It seems like there was no communication and you can call the doctor and discuss this.
Without you or us knowing the settings, noone can tell you for sure if the treatment settings were ok. You would have to wait 3 weeks and see if there is shedding.
Ive been to 2 laces in the UK. And i found both nurses to be very casual and not seeming to take it seriuosly.
The just say lay donw, put the glasses on and away they go. I watch them both and they dont really do it accuratly enough. I speak up and say âcan you do this bit againâ andâ i think you missed that bitâ but theres only so many times you can say it?
I think it goes with the territory⌠They dont âneedâ you there, they have tons of customers.
Im positive i could do a better job than both of my so called proâs.
But what also makes me sceptical is the stuff which I was told there. She didnât even mention shedding at all. Shouldnât she at least have told me what it is? If I had not done research I would not even know what it is. The only thing she said is that I should shave the area in a few days with a razor. What sense is this supposed to make? There are simply many small things which all come together and the result is that I am not convinced that they know what they do. I do not want my insurance to pay for a bad job because in the end I am the one whoâs screwed because the insurance will only pay once. I cannot go to another one later on and get the same again. Then I will have to pay it.
And I also think that when youâre told how the machine works and what to look for and how to judge if you are using too much energy then you could do it as well and even better as those assistents because when you do it on your own body you pay much more attention to it and make sure everything is the way you want it. After all weâre not talking about flying a space shuttle this is simply like poiting a laser marker at a bullseye.
henrys, the issue of most laser operators not knowing what theyâre doing is consistently discussed here. the only thing you can do is look for a clinic that knows what theyâre doing and cares about your results. we constantly say this and itâs stated in the FAQs. unfortunately, at this point the industry is not at the level where you can expect every clinic to know what theyâre doing. many are in it just for the money.
Well I thought that since itâs a doctorâs office itâs okay but I guess I was wrong.
I have another question. Doesnât the speed of the procedure itself also show that something wasnât done properly? I mean 2 minutes for 1 butt-cheek seems very fast for me. Or is it normal that the laser is so fast? I could feel like going from right to left and the always a bit down and then from right to left again and so on. It went totally fast.
Did she glide the laser head along your skin? For most lasers, itâs more effective to press down when treating. In general, yes, 2 mins is too fast for an entire butt cheek. However, do you have hair on all of it?
Either way, please read the FAQs carefully so that you can do proper research and find a better place. Being a doctor has nothing to do with their knowledge of hair removal. They donât teach hair removal in medical school. You need to find someone who does laser hair removal all day long and has been doing it for years. Plus, you need to learn from FAQs so that you can ask questions and judge whether they know what theyâre talking about.
Laser head along my skin? You mean if it touched it? No. Definitely not. Is the laser not simply pointed at the skin?
I simply felt the slight twinging and the cold air moving. I mean I could tell how she moved from right to left and then a step down and then from right to left again. Row by row. And it went totally fast. Why did it go so fast? I mean how often das a laser shoot every second? If it shoots once a second and if the laser point has a size of 10mm for example then it would maybe take 15-20 seconds to go from one edge of the cheek to the other edge of the cheek and then you go down and do the next row.
And yes, she did the entire cheek and it went really fast.
I just donât know why it was so fast. Was it so fast because she was simply rushing down the ârowsâ and not covering everything or was it so fast because the laser has a fast fire rate? I read that the Arion is pretty fast. Could this explain it?
And another problem is that even if you find a doctor who knows a lot of about hair removal then it doesnât help you very much because the doctor usually never does it. For such things he has his assistants and if they arenât good then also the good doctor doesnât help you.
no, it doesnât take that fast. you are correct, the laser head needs to be moved over every area and zapped. maybe you donât have a lot of hair there? you donât feel that much when lasering over a spot with no hair. otherwise, yes, they probably missed spots and used low settings. you can call and ask what settings they used and post for us here.
what i meant is that it doesnât need to be a doctor. it needs to be someone who does hair removal all day long. you donât need to be a doctor to know how to do it well. you need to be experienced in laser hair removal in particular.
Does the laser fire automatically? Or do you have to push a button every single time? As far as I know the Arion has some sort of scanner which allows to treat huge areas in short time. Could this be the explanation why it went to fast?
Various machines work differently. The scanner only helps determine where the hair is, so it helps the operator see where the hair is faster. There is still the same amount of time involved on actually zapping the hair.
So how long would you say would a butt cheek usually take?
And what sucks is that I have pretty huge spots on my cheeks now which are red and look like acne. I donât know if this is due to the shaving or if itâs from the laser. This is not good.
Maybe itâs from the shaving or maybe itâs due to the hair growing back. Or could it be due to hair which is stuck in hair shafts? But this would only be the case if the laser was effective and killed some hair. But how do I get rid of the hair? What if it causes infections? This is really annoying.
Its due to the Laser. I had alot of 'âspotsâ after laser on my chest. It got better the more treatments i had (probably due to the reduction in hair)
They will clear up eventually. After my third and forth treatments i stopped using Aloe Vera, and got hardly any spots. So i wonder if the Aloe had an effectâŚ
itâs normal to have some redness and raised follicles with redness for up to 3-4 days. if it lasts more than a week, i would see the clinic and show them. some people can have histamine reaction as well. also, you should try to keep the area dry as much as possible (minimize sweat etc until it heals).
