Hi, I have a problem with excess hair on my breasts. I would say I have up to 200 on each side, so it’s pretty bad. I’m not particularly hairy apart from the breasts and a bit on my belly. I started electrolysis in December and haven’t been going often enough, but am going to do twice-weekly sessions as I have found an electrologist in my area. I’ve had about 5 sessions of 45 minutes, sometimes longer and I don’t know yet if it’s having an effect, but what I’ve noticed is that every time I come away from a session, expecting to have had full clearance, I look down and see loads of hairs still there. I’ve seen 4 different therapists, and it’s the same every single time. They tell me, there, all done, when actually it’s only about half done. My body hair is relatively light in colour, but I can see it very clearly, so I don’t understand why the electrologists can’t see it. Yesterday I went for electrolysis and had a 40-minute session. I was feeling optimistic until I came home, took my top off and counted about 70 hairs on each breast. The thing is, I booked a 1-hour session and she told me she was done. Is it the colour of my hair that’s the problem? I just feel so disheartened. I’ve lived with this for so long and I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone how difficult it is to feel ashamed and disgusted by your body. I know that I probably am making progress but what will it take to get full clearance in one session? I feel like I should draw arrows or circles around each hair so that the therapist can see it.
The frequency and duration of your treatments seem excessive for the number of hairs you describe. Any possibility of a photograph?
She looks at the hair from a totally different angle. This might make some hairs to disappear visually.
Anyway, i can fully understand Your frustration - i am in the 300+ hour range of treatment of my face and have experienced this often enough. Unfortunately mainly in the regions i cannot treat myself.
Maybe darkening the hair with mascara might help?
People usually underestimate their hair count by at least 3 times. But why don’t you examine the work done right there, before you leave the office? Can you just pinpoint the hairs that you want treated to your electrologist?
After 31 years of practice, I can tell you that once I have an area cleared, then move the light around - I can see some hairs I missed. I can also tell you that our bodies have lots of vellus hairs that really are not problem or unsightly hairs - yet the client might be a bit obsessed with them.
No one (except your electrologist) is going to look as closely at your “hairy” area as you do. Electrolysis takes patience and time. Once the big bad hairs are gone and if you are still worried about little bad hairs - your electrologist will go after those little bad babies.
If you were my client, I would be perfectly fine with you doing circles and arrows. I would, if needed, give you a mirror and tell you to boss me around. I would ask you to point to any hairs I may have missed that you want gone and I would treat them. Moving the light helps identify fine hairs. Naturally, the best vision aid helps the electrologist see ALL hairs light and small, big and tall. All frustration leaves if the electrologist can see and do and the client can point and direct. It is not hard to do and shows much respect for the suffering hairy.
Sometimes, when doing intensive clearings of very tiny hairs, once the skin acquires a pinkish tinge due to the current application,these tiny hairs become invisible. Aside from that though,you have had an enormous number of hours of treatment,for what sounds like a small amount of hair.
I’ve tried to take a photo, this was as clear as I could get it.
Thanks for the input so far. Two of you mentioned that I seem to be having a lot of treatment for the number of hairs. Should I be worried about this? What would be a normal length of time? Maybe I’m underestimating how many I had to begin with. It’s been two days since my last treatment and I can count about 80-90 hairs on each side, including in between. Maybe it was more like 300 on each side at the start, I don’t know. I’ve put some mascara on the remaining hairs and taken some photos so it’s clearer to see just how bad the problem is. I’m planning to go again on Tuesday and I’ll try pointing out the hairs to her the this time. Would it be OK to put mascara on when I go there or would it just come off?
Also, I have some red bumps after the last time (which I know is normal) but some of them also appear to have pus under them. Does this usually happen? I had blend at the beginning and had no reaction to it so I don’t know what’s normal for diathermy.
The last thing I wanted to ask was, the therapist said something that struck me as strange, but maybe it’s not. She said that it’s OK to reuse needles (on the same client, obviously) and that she would save my needle and reuse it next time I come. Is this actually OK or will it give me an infection?
I do not think their is a need to reuse needles.Iwould not except this. Needles are not expensive and you are paying for this. Did she mention she will reduce the cost of the treatments now that she will be using the same needle?
I would ask is she going to sterilise the needle? will she package it and you watch her label it with your I.D? Will you check your I.D before she reuses the needle?
Why? I just do not get it, keeping reused needles their is a chance of putting herself at risk and room for mistakes.
The hair seem long and obvious enough to be treated even without with the help of mascara, but I’m not surprised they cannot see them.
Electrologists who still think it’s ok to reuse needles generally have very poor magnification or none, and they don’t consider sufficient light to be very necessary.
If I may ask, which country are you in? Maybe someone here can direct you to a more qualified person. Infectious diseases are not joke and some are forever.
You might want to get some tea-tree oil for the white bumps.
Ok so far you have had 5 x 45 mins = 225 mins of treatment.
What is the speed of your electrologist?
I agree with yb that people underestimate the amount of hair that they have.
If you book an hour with an electrologist and they don’t remove all the hair… that’s not really their fault. You need to either (a) book sufficient time to clear it all or (b) go back again after a few days or a week to finish it off. With my full electrologist, I never achieved a ‘clearance’ unless it was small area like the eyebrows or areolas (I only removed the coarse hairs around these) - we just weren’t working like that. But the job still done.
And I agree with Barbara, the body is covered with vellus hairs that most people aren’t bothered about. For example, my personal electrolysis goal is just to remove what is obvious after bleaching, no one is going to examine my skin closely enough to see the rest of the tiny hairs. But if you want it all gone, you need to be clear with the electrologist that you want every single hair removed (looking at your pics, they look pretty obvious with mascara though). If he/she can’t remove all in the first session because the time was not enough… book another until you are happy.
You’ve had 5 sessions with 4 different electrologists. Unless there was a problem in regards to the actual treatment with any, I’m not sure why. I feel you have to build a rapport with your electrologist to get the work that you want done. This isn’t going to happen in one session.
Putting machines like the Apilus Platinum aside. I much preferred blend for this area.
I’m in Italy. This is part of the problem. I had my previous treatments done in London using the blend method, which I got on fine with (although it was slower). I didn’t get red bumps from it. I’m living in Italy and will be here for at least another 6 months. I looked for someone who does Blend but couldn’t find anyone, I rang one clinic and asked and the (rather rude, not unusual in Italy) woman told me that yes, they did Blend. I trekked halfway across the city and was told by the receptionist that they didn’t use Blend and that it’s not used in Italy because it “doesn’t give results”. Strange, because I’ve read, and been told, the opposite. They do thermolysis but charge 4 € per minute, which seems excessive.
The electrologist I’ve found now has a lot of experience (30+ years) but told me she’d never heard of Blend, which strikes me as a bit odd. The things I find good about her are, she works quite quickly and I felt absolutely nothing as the hairs came out, whereas in the past I’ve occasionally felt some resistance. Bad things, obviously the number of hairs still remaining, the skin damage (hopefully temporary) and the fact that she wants to reuse the needle. I’m going to tell her I want a new one, but have been reading on here about Laurier IBP needles. Can I order these myself and bring them and ask her to use them? It sounds like they minimise skin damage.
I mean no offence to Italians, but Italy isn’t exactly the most advanced country when it comes to technology. Ideally, I’d like to go back to London, but it’s not an option right now and I don’t have the money to jet over there every time I need to have electrolysis. I could wait until I leave, but that would mean the hair that might have been cleared would have a chance to take hold again, and also I’m finding it hard to live with and want it gone.
Actually I had a couple of European countries in mind when I read about her offer to reuse the needle and Italy was one of them. 
I suppose it was common practice to do this back when she started out, so she’s more comfortable with the idea than we are now.
If you’re satisfied her work and hygiene otherwise, maybe you can compromise on this issue by bringing your own. I wouldn’t expect miracles though, because much of the reaction you are seeing is also due to the intensity used.
Try to keep the area very clean and apply tea tree oil until those pustules dry out. It might take a few months but the pigmentation should go away eventually…
Spain is another country in which many professionals, reuse the needle. Not all do. In my case, I just reused the probe when it is a Laurier. Not for the money it costs the probe, but by high customs duties and whimsical addition to the time they retain the package in the post offices. I prefer to reuse a needle Laurier in the face of my clients, that being forced to use a standard disposable needle, because the package has not arrived on time.
I went back today and had a different electrologist. Probably the best so far. She was quiet and concentrated and really meticulous. I told her at the beginning about my previous disappointments at not getting all the hairs removed and after she had finished she asked me to have a look under the light and see if I could see any that she’d missed. She had missed maybe three hairs out of the 150-odd the other electrologist before her had missed. It’s a great feeling to be rid of the hair. I know it will be back soon but I’m just enjoying being hair-free for now and feeling more motivated to continue.
She also used a new needle, I didn’t even have to say anything. I think it might just be the other electrologist who reuses them. She also came barging in halfway through today’s session, without knocking, to see how it was going and to tell me (for the 5th time) not to touch the hair when they grow out. I know who I’m going to next time.
Hey, thanks for the update. I’m VERY glad for you.
There is sometimes a valid reason to reuse a needle, as Josefa said the customs and delivery time can be atrocious for anything sent out from the States. (Try Fedex, costly but fast.)
But the thought of storing hundreds of little packages of regular needles and making sure they are properly sterilized and identified is a little… daunting.