Thanks for your feedback LAgirl… I have my next treatment scheduled in 9 weeks, so should be optimal timing. Quick question, does anyone know what the significance of a 5ms vs 3ms pulse width is? Is there an advantage of one over the other? Fluence and spot size seem straightforward, but to me pulse width is the hardest parameter to get a feel for.
Thanks,
Baboon
I think the pulse width measures the amount of time over which the fixed amount of energy is delivered. A shorter duration means a higher energy per unit time.
I believe the original Candela machine was a fixed pulse width of 3ms, and the new machines allow the parameter to be adjusted higher (but not lower).
I suspect the 3ms figure is the most effective.
Bryce is correct. It’s basically how quickly the heat is being delivered, so the shorter the pulse width, the more is delivered in a specific amount of time.
GentleLASE is always fixed at 3ms. The new GentleMAX machine, which is both an alex and a Yag, has an adjustable pulse. GentleYAG always had an adjustable pulse.
This makes sense… thanks
Hello everybody. Time for an update.
This afternoon I had my 3rd treatment on back and shoulders using the GentleMax. The settings were 16J with an 18mm spot size and a 3 ms pulse width.
It had been 3 months since my previous treatment, and it was only in the past 2-3 weeks that I had sufficient re-growth to warrant another treatment. I forgot how much is hurts!! especially over the upper back and shoulder blades. Overall treatment took about 90 minutes.
I have been taking photos to document my progress, and the link below shows me before any treatments, 3 months after my first treatment, and 3 months after my second treatment.
I am pretty pleased with the results so far, and hope to make more progress after my recent 3rd session. Please feel free to comment or ask any questions.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas.
Baboon
Thanks for the update!
I would try to get treatments at most 12 weeks apart to make sure you catch hairs in the right phase of growth.
Wow looking great dude. Just keep going and please do keep updating because this is very encouraging.
Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated. I’m going to be posting until the end of my treatments for sure and am glad to be giving something back to the forum.
Right now I’m trying to figure out how many more treatments I’ll need before hitting the point of diminishing returns - I’m guessing maybe 3 more sessions i.e. another 9 months or so.
Baboon
I would count on about 6-8 good treatments. At that point, you’ll probably have to do electrolysis on anything that remains.
hi,
i saw the pictures and i think it’s really great result for 3 sessions.
my arm hair is about the same as your shoulders (before you started laser) and i would be happy with reduction as it looks after your 3rd session.
any news about your 4th session?
i will add a link to a male laser blog, and i was pretty disappointed to see his result as for 6 month after his 4th session… tell me what do you think.
http://www.mylaserhairremovalstory.com/
Results in that blog look good to me.
lagirl, the first pictures in the blog are 6 month after 4th session (i guess this guy wanted some reduction and he waited 6 month to see the result) and that what he wrote:
“oking so good folks. It’s been 6 months and a few weeks since I had my 4th laser hair removal treatment on my legs and its been about 4 months since I’ve had my arms done. And a lot has changed. Slowly the hair has been coming back. My arms are showing it the worst. The hairs on my legs are pretty thin stin, but they are getting longer and darker. The hairs on my arms have been dark and long for a while now. At least 2 months. The worst part is that my upper arms are REALLY hairy now. Really hairy. All the way up.”
http://www.mylaserhairremovalstory.com/
so the latest pictures are from February 2009 and i wouldn’t consider it as a good result, neither the blog owner.
I don’t see any photos there of the part you describe. I wonder why he didn’t include them.
There are also no settings mentioned for any of the treatments, so it’s hard to tell if they’re aggressive enough.
***UPDATE***
Hello everyone. I am long overdue in giving an update on the progress of my treatments for back, shoulders and upper arms. My last update was in December 2010, and since then I had another treatment at the end of March 2011. In the time between, the owners of the clinic I was using had changed, and they no longer offered any photo service prior to the treatment. Hence, I did not have photos from 3 months after my 3rd treatment and so I did not post an update.
Anyhow, I went ahead and had my 4th treatment, and 3 months on I have taken pictures myself and uploaded them to the link below. Apologies that the most recent photo quality is not as good as previous ones, but it is hard taking pictures of your back with just an iPhone. So the last treament I had was at with the GentleMAX at max spot size, 18J and a 10ms pulse. I thought the pulse was too long - having heard that the shorter the better - but they said that at this stage this setting would be best (to be honest, I’m not convinced these guys really know about the science, so willing to take advise here). Anyhow, I went with it and the photos you can see below are the results 3 months on. All in all I am pleased with the results I have and so perhaps they do know what they are talking about with regards to the treatment settings.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/upperback4treat.jpg/
I now have my 5th session scheduled for next week, so I am pretty much at the half way stage now, having started this process just over a year ago. I find that following the ‘hairless’ period after a treatment, the new growth seems to come on fairly quickly more or less at the 3 month mark. As a result, the optimal time between treatments for me appears to be about 3.5 months.
The last session I had was noticeably less painful than the previous sessions, which I attribute primarily to the lower density of hairs remaining. Having said that, there was plenty of redness in the days following the treatment - more than I remember having from previous sessions. I also noticed that I appeared to remain hairless for slightly longer than on my previous treatments. I am very encouraged by the overall progress, and undeniably the hair growth has become finer and significantly reduced after my 4 sessions to date. I am not sure how much of this comes across in the photos to the casual viewer, but it is hard to be quantitative about these things.
I will ask for the joules to be put up to 20 for my treatment next week and will post another update with pictures in about 3 months or so. Once again, apologies for my absence from this great forum, but I am now back on it.
– Baboon.
Thanks for the update.
The thing with visual progress is that after laser the hair takes a long time to grow back to its original length. A lot of times people are fooled by the illusion of the shorter hair post-laser. I do think you’re having good results though.
Great results, well done. Keep going! 
Alex or Yag on GentleMAX? What spot size?
Your hair is medium coarseness. I would expect to definitely need to finish with electrolysis after 6-8 treatments with laser.
Thanks for the posts, I generally agree with the visual assessment point, although the comparisons I am making are somewhat normalized by the fact that my photos are all taken 3 months after the preceding treatment.
LAgirl: Alex with the max spot size (18mm). I figured that electrolysis would probably be necessary to remove remaining straglers, but that’s something to assess in 6 - 9 months when I get there. I’ll need to figure out the what / where and how of electrolysis as it is something I currently know very little about!
– Baboon
We have a great helpful electrolysis forum here as well
Sorry tagbaby, but I dont see any progress on your pictures - and I dont want to paint the devil on the wall, but you allso wont see any progress if you didnt saw any after the 4th treatment… Maybe Im wrong, but you will see for yourself.
Wish you luck with your journey.
Miro