WARNING - Laser burns

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#41

I had a small “burn” from laser recently (the result of doubling back over an area accidentally), and it was no big deal. It was like a sunburn or a little worse, and it healed in less than a week perfectly. I would assume that most laser burns are like mine, and that the big burns mentioned in this thread are rare compared to the total number of treatments given. When a laser tech says you might burn someone eventually, I think they mean little owwies, not disfiguring scars.

Conversely, the red marks from electrolysis take weeks or months to fade (much longer than my laser burn). This is par for the course, and makes my skin look worse than the laser burn did, for example. Unlike a laser burn, the electrolysis marks happen 100% of the time for me. That makes them way more inconvenient than any risk from a laser. As much as I love electrolysis, laser leaves my skin in gorgeous condition compared to even the best electrolysis treatments.

I’m just adding that info for a little perspective so that laser doesn’t get such a bad reputation.

#42

I think the woman who got the $150 million out of court settlement for the burns on her face would disagree with you. (for that matter, all the recipients of the many LASER industry out of court settlements that include gag orders would disagree with you.)

To be fair, what we usually have is people who have negative results of either speaking to us during a time when it is too early to say for sure if the result they have is a temporary inconvenience, or a permanent scar regardless of if the person did LASER or electrolysis. It is rare that we have anyone on this board still speaking to us a year after the incident to be able to say how the issue resolved.

Now the funny thing my dear MagicalPrincess, is that I could be like SOMEONE on this board and say that the highest level of electrolysis performance could likely give you hair removal without pigmentation, but what I will say is this; If Mike Bono, Fino Gior, and G. Elizabeth Meharg had all told me that electrolysis was unpredictable enough that even when you do everything right, negative reactions will pop out of nowhere to leave what may be anything from a temporary issue, to a permanent scar, would I be wrong in trusting their word for it? Would I be wrong to repeat it publicly? Well, they did not say such, nor would that statement be true, however, I could name such a list of LASER people who have said as much privately to me, and I certainly have clients whose experience bears this out.

#43

I didn’t say the bad burns don’t happen. I said they aren’t the majority. If those $150 million settlements were super common in every practice, then the cost of providing laser would outweigh the profit and nobody would be able to offer it anymore. Plus, as you said, we hear the horror stories more often than the successes. Nobody writes NBC News to say “I had uneventful laser hair removal today and it went fine.”

I agree that I can have electrolysis treatment with no side effects, because when I treat myself I have almost no side effects. But I’d argue that it must be related to a factor other than talent or skill, because you know who my electrologist was and she’s one of the best in the business, and gave pretty perfect treatments (conservative energy if anything). And yet, I am an amateur and I can avoid giving myself red marks. I think it’s a combination of many variables that I can’t figure out just yet.

#44

My dear MagicalPrincess, the 150 million dollar settlement line was in responce to

No one said that every LHR client would be burned, just that I have it from reliable sources who both teach and perform the procedure that when burns happen, it is often unavoidable, as there is nothing the person performing the process would have known, or could have foreseen that would have avoided it. Case in point, the burning incident that started this present rash of flaming happened when a tech got a good test at 45J and did the treatment at 35J and yet got a worse reaction than the 45J had done on the same person. If that is not the definition of doing everything you know to do correctly and having an unexpected result, I don’t know what would be.

As far as your ability to perform non-pigmenting electrolysis on yourself when your professional never did, it really proves the point that I make all the time when I say, often newer practitioners do better work, because they are more open to the newer machines and protocols, while others do things that are based on research and studies based on use of spark gap machines back when cars had ignition cranks instead of keys.

#45

I understand what you’re saying now James, but you could say the same thing about pretty much everything. I never seen a case of burning like that, i did hear about it once or twice though. Still, not a good enough reason to turn it down.
That is why we pay for insurance, you can’t see everything but at the same time expect everything to be covered.
If you train your employees well with laser, even minor burns are very very rare. Why? Technology is moving forward towards safer equipment.

#46

odi - I think your last sentence is very important.

Just as electrolysis has come a way with the advance of technology, Laser will also.

#47

James, if any type of permanent side effects from burns by laser were common, we would see a ton of posts here complaining about it as most people come to forums to complain. Alas, such posts don’t really exist here.

On the other hand, there are dozens of posts here by people who have permanent scarring as a result of electrolysis. So if you go by your assessment, electrolysis has a much higher risk for permanent scarring (and I’m not even taking into account the fact that a LOT more people get treated with lasers nowdays than electrolysis).

#48

I guess it all depends on one’s definitions of words “any”, “permanent”, “common”, and “ton of complaints”. Should I consult Former President William Jefferson Bythe Clinton for his personal thesaurus? :grin:

Funny that this very thread was started by someone who expects to have a noticeable skin change a year from now, and I hope he follows through to tell us ONE WAY OR ANOTHER how his skin heals.

Since you have referenced this very site as your reference material, and you say there are dozens of people here complaining about PERMANENT SCARRING resulting from Electrolysis, I ask you to find 24 unique individuals on here who have posted that they have permanent scarring from electrolysis at least one year out from their last treatment, AND furthermore see if you can’t find 24 unique persons who are complaining about a similar result from LASER.

I can’t understand why you are taking this position lately that any negative LASER result is obviously the work of a chimpanzee who somehow got a LASER to play with, while those who took the whole weekend LASER course and attended CEU classes for a couple hours once a year could not possibly make errors.

We electrolysis professionals are constantly saying that one can’t throw a dart into a phone book and find the same treatment in any city. That’s why some people choose to travel to get better treatments. Why do you insist that there are some Mythical LASER Practitioners who never error.

#49

Hey yeah I’m following along in the thread. Will keep you up to date with how my skin heals. At the moment a lot of the brown burns/scabs are peeling off and leaving quite pink raw skin underneath. Hopefully these will fade to my normal skin tone eventually.

I have to admit I was pretty blase towards the dangers of laser. Problem is I wouldn’t know how to prevent this in the future. I mean the joules were lowered and I/she couldn’t see any burns. Puts me right off lasers tbh

#50

I’m 99% sure that it was a system malfunction and you should check legal options. Whoever service that specific machine is responsible, and if everything on his end was according to spec then the level above him is responsible.

This is exactly the reason why clinics are paying for insurance, it’s not your fault and you should be compensated.

#51

James, I always have the same position, i.e. being unbiased. And it’s frustrating to have to defend laser when you constantly make statements everywhere you can on the laser forum suggesting that electrolysis is without risk and laser comes with a huge risk factor, which is basically false. Neither method is without risk. It all comes down to the skill of the practitioner. It’s not about someone taking a course. It’s about someone performing laser treatments for a considerable amount of time, just like an electrologist gets better after a while.

If anything, most clinics undertreat, not overtreat (necessary for a burn) because they’re afraid of lawsuits. That’s why we get posts about lack of results, which almost always turn out to be due to low settings. Even the settings that the laser manufacturers recommend are way low for the same reason. The people who are more aggressive with settings are usually those who have experience. A burn like the one mentioned in this thread is uusally a result of something else, like a machine malfunction.

Just in the last two weeks, there are posts by IVMI and Bryce outlining their scarring after electrolysis. IVMI is very upset by it and bryce says he doesn’t mind it as he prefers it to the hair.

There are no threads that I know of by anyone complaining of laser scarring several years after a burn. If you can find any, do post them.

#52

Well that’s where i’m not so sure - assuming the settings being used are reasonable. All they do is place the laser on your skin. The laser either burns you or it doesn’t

I don’t care whether the laser operator was the most skilled in the industry, they were still going to burn me. Perhaps with more experience they could have seen something that me or my laser tech didn’t and stopped earlier. Seeing as I looked at the skin and it just looked red like normal I’m not at all convinced (although I do think she could have stopped slightly earlier.) Regardless, they were still going to burn me, just a question of how much.

How would ‘experienced’ techs learn to spot burns anyway? By burning people I guess…

#53

Problem is how do you prove it was a malfunction and not just some weird reaction to the front of my body. It does seem weird that the day before the machine was working seemingly perfectly , then suddenly the next day it malfunctions. It also seems weird that it wouldn’t burn my back but would my front, but perhaps I have some underlying pigment on the front? Who knows.

Either way legal action wouldn’t be easy, especially in Thailand where ‘mai pen rai’ (doesn’t matter/no problem) is their favorite saying.

#54

Experienced techs can tell by the skin’s reaction because they’ve done thousands of treatments. You’ve only seen a couple on yourself (and it wasn’t on this specific area, correct?).

#55

I guess it would depend on the severity of the burn.
When all goes well or when there is a minor burn, the skin should look a bit pink.
I’ve never seen seen a reaction that leads to those kind of burns, so hard for me to tell if you could tell or not.

#56

It was my 2nd session on the front. First was done at 30J with the usual redness but no burning. I have had 2 sessions on back with lightsheer (35-45J.) I have also had 3 before on back with coolglide and one with I think soprano. And some mucking around with the tria

I looked at my chest after she treated it. It just looked red as it always is, but nothing to cause me any concern. When she first noticed the blistering I looked and thought well this isn’t so bad because it’s only a little bit in certain areas, then slowly the blisters started coming up everywhere. Like I say, there is definitely a delayed reaction.

So in seeing it first hand I have my doubts as to what an experienced tech would see. Even if an ‘experienced’ (burnt lots of people?) tech could see something I couldn’t on others, there is no guarantee she could see something on MY skin.

At the end of the day, I was burnt by the laser, not by the tech.

BTW: It’s not like this is the techs first job. For all I know she could have treated thousands of people (yes, I know you will all say I should ask this first.) This was a big popular beauty salon chain and she has been there for some time fwiw.