So, I started electrolysis a few weeks ago (should have started this post back then, but too late to do anything about that now). My details, briefly: Male, 27. Hair on 90% of body. Tried IPL (flashlamp) on my back, for 6 months, 1 treatment per month. No noticeable reduction of any hair after this time. Light skin, dark hair.

I made a note of the questions from this website, added a few of my own, and went in for a quick consultation. I spoke with the lady who will be performing the electrolysis. She answered my questions to my satisfaction, and she explained clearly about the hair growth cycles, what I should expect, the different methods available etc etc. The pertinent details are: 13 years experience as an electrolysist; using a proteus 2000 with manual timing; clean, new needles for each session; explanation of the hair phases, the likely path that we'll take, and so on.

Since I didn't want to wait another week before 'starting', I had the waxing (hot wax - yikes) done there and then. I want to eventually get my whole back (and possibly other areas, depending) done, but as a kind of 'test phase' (I read that it's possible for someone to not have success with electrolysis) I wanted just my shoulders and the hollow of my throat done. Stupidly, I didn't take photos (even though I meant to) before the treatment, and haven't since I've been back (again, I wanted to, but without the original photos to show how much has changed, I figure it's pointless now).

We started off with the front of my shoulders, and a bit at the shoulder blade (maybe 2 inches down my back). I came back a week later to get my first needle-sticking done. It was an hour session, and I wasn't sure how much would get done. The process as explained to me is to wax an area (in this case my shoulders, including the front and back and throat - she referred to it as the "t-shirt area") and then to catch the hairs as they regrow. Once we're on top of it and it's no longer overwhelming, we can start moving down the back in layers.

My first impressions from the first hour - holy **** that hurts. Okay, I'm probably overreacting a bit, but when the electricity was applied, I really felt it. I would equate it with a bee sting or a large ant bite. I asked about pain relief, and she suggested a pain-tablet (I dont live in the USA, so the names I mentioned probably wouldn't mean anything to you - I guess they'd be the equivalent of tylenol?) 1 hour before coming in. I managed to tolerate it, but I have to say, I'm not sure I could do sensitive areas with it (I was thinking about getting my face done eventually). The sensitive parts so far are my neck (the hollow of my throat), and the back of my neck up near the hair line. These places sting alot. I imagine the face would be twice as painful, and since there's alot more hair on the face, I really don't know if I could tolerate it.

The pain was bad enough that on subsequent visits, I asked whether it would matter if I drank half a bottle of vodka before visiting (for the record, her only concern was whether I'd make it up the steps). In the first session, we did the front of my throat, the bit around the back of my arms, and a tiny bit on the top of my shoulders.

In the second session, we redid those areas, and then managed to get the majority of the left half of my shoulder (top and back) done. In the third (and most recent) session, We did the regrowth of the above, and the majority of my right shoulder blade. There's a bit left in the middle, and she says the next session (next Tuesday) will probably take care of that.

I'm not sure how much more detail to go into - it's possible she reads these forums (although I gather quite unlikely). I wouldn't want to give her name or business, especially if something goes wrong and I write "bad" things - couldn't I get in trouble for defamation? As far as healing, I can't see perfectly (given my back area anyway) but so far, I can't say I've noticed any major problems. The area around the back of my shoulders has been itchy, but I admit that it's possible it's due to the shirt collars now rubbing against my bare skin. I've noticed quite a bit of what look like pimples in the areas treated (not a huge amount tho, I'd have to take pictures to be sure though).

I'll leave it here for now.

Hi:

You may want to try some tylenol 3's before treatment
and Emla cream also before treatment.

With the Emla you should apply it to the area to be treated about an hour or more before and cover it with plastic wrap. The area at the base of the neck and the neck itself can be quite painful depending on the machine
used I suppose.

Alicia

Welcome, alphabet-boy. I think the waxing bit before you start is a good idea, so as to make each application of energy as effective as possible. I didn't do that and probably should have.

You might take a look as my treatment diary. I'm getting close to half-way done with my back and shoulders after almost one year of treatments (4-12 hours a month). I have photos and you can compare how my skin looks after so many hours of treatment. My skin is still nowhere near perfect. I'm guessing that it's going to take at least a full year after my final treatment to get the clear, hair-free skin I want.

Update: I've now had my 4th 1 hour session working on my shoulders. For this session, I took a painkiller an hour before the procedure (the painkiller was codeine and paracetamol, apparently one of the more powerful dosages according to my doctor). During the procedure, I noticed no reduction in pain at all. I still felt it every time, and it still stung, and I still hated it.

I've been looking around for emla cream, but my local pharamacies are selling it for $15-$20 for 5 gram tubes of the stuff. I dunno, but that seems kind of expensive to me, especially if I'm going to be using it over large areas of my body. Does anyone know a place that will ship internationally that sells it cheaper? If not, I'm really going to have to try the vodka bottle alternative, because I'll quickly rack up bills buying things like Emla cream. While on the subject, some cheap witch hazel would be good too.

After this session, my electrologist said that my shoulders were looking good and that soon we can start expanding down my back. However, when I look at my shoulders, I see alot of little black hairs (which seem to be recent regrowths - the waxing was 5 weeks ago). Is this normal? I know that electrolysis isn't quick or going to get rid of all the hairs in one pass, but it seems like there's an awful lot of regrowth that doesn't seem to be of any concern to my electrologist. I can take some photos if need be.

Any advice ?

It may be that the hairs you are seeing are growth that was removed from the wax. The hairs she has removed up until now were different hairs and now you will be seeing the hairs removed by the wax starting to regrow. You have many different cycles of hair going on. On the pain killing note I have found that some clients get relief from certain herbs. You may also want to try Extra strength Oragel that is used for toothaches. It is cheaper than emla and may take the edge off. The liquid works better than the gel for large areas. Herbs to help with pain can include but are not limited to Valarian, Willow bark, Cannabis(if it is legal where you live or you have a prescription.) Of course be careful when mixing pain relievers, mainly heavy duty ones. Hope this helps.

Hi Alphabet:

It is cheaper to buy Emla in the 30 gm tubes than the 5 gm ones. Also if you live in the US, you can probably buy it from a Canadian online pharmacy for less. Unfortunately Canadians can't get the same prices. At the price you quoted for a 5 gm tube, 30gms would work out to $75-$100.

I live in Canada and got my doctor to write me a prescription with refills. With the prescription I do save
close to 10 dollars/30gm tube compared to buying it over the counter.

Alicia

If you had someone nearby that used an Apilus Platinum or Pure instead of a Proteus 2000, you wouldn't be on here discussing pain. It's just that good. The power and comfort of 27 MHz technology has brought permanent hair removal to a higher plane where expensive topicals or oral medications are not needed.

With that said, all of the above suggestions are helpful.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of waxing was to remove all hairs in the area, such that they would then be regrowing, and hence in the anagin (anagen?) stage suitable for zapping. If these hairs are the regrowth from the waxing, wouldn't they be ideal candidates for zappage ?

As for alternatives, well, in this entire city there are 2 electrologists. I haven't made contact with the other one yet since it's about an hour out of my way, and their website is down - I might phone them tomorrow and find out if they do 'real' electrolysis or if it's one of those dodgy ones using an epilator or something.

I'll try extra strength orajel (it's marginally cheaper than emla - although I'll have to buy it from the US and hope that I can get it shipped overseas) but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks for the suggestions though (and that cannabis one is looking better and better...)

I seem to be twice cursed with a low tolerance for pain, and a curious immunity to most pain-relief medication (headache tablets, anaesthetic gels, none of that stuff seems to work on me at all )

You are correct about waxing. The hairs that come in 4-5 weeks after waxing are in anagen. If they come in too early, i.e. within a week or so, then they were likely broken off due to bad waxing.

I'm not sure I understand your question about it though. Are your treatments long enough to remove all the hair that's visible?

I wouldn't have Orajel shipped from the United States. Surely there is a similar product where you live that has 20% Benzocaine. I mean, babies teeth in other countries as well and there must be something similar to Oragel that one can purchase. I'm not sure about this working so well, but will take Alicia's word for it. Topicals need to penetrate to the the base of the hair where the bundle of nerves are tp work really well. A lot of products metabolize quickly, which makes them unsuitable for electrolysis.

Can your electrologist go for longer timing and lower instensity to help with the pain issue?

Waxing is fine for one time only, prior to starting electrolysis, but it is not an absolute must.

Dee

Well, I thought they were... I've spoken with her on several occasions about me coming in for longer sessions, because a month to do a small section of my shoulders, well, that means the rest of my back and chest will take probably 3 years at this rate. But I've asked if we're going too slow or if the hair is "getting out of control" and she says no, everything's fine, and she's happy with my current sessions. I have an appointment on Monday, so I'll try to remember to ask her about the remaining hairs and why they're not being zapped.

I'll also ask about changing the settings, but from what I recall, the settings were at an intensity level of 4 (out of 10).

Hi Dee:

Actually it was someone else who suggested Orajel.

I would recommend Emla, which is what I use personally.

Alicia

I apologise. Yes, I see that it was tami. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Alicia. I think I'm suffering from decreasing estrogen levels.

Hi Dee:

That's quite OK.

I can see how decreased estrogen might do that to someone though.

Alicia

abc, it's in your best interest to try to get to a full clearance on all areas you're treating as fast as possible to avoid constant treatment of hairs that are probably already dead. If this electrologist is not willing to give you more time and more often, you may want to look for others too. It's very important to get cleared as fast as possible in order to come in afterwards just to get the new weak hair as soon as it comes in.

Another session. We discussed the clearing of large areas quickly, and she agreed that it would probably be quicker that way (and more expensive too, woohoo). We made tentative plans for a full back clearance and longer sessions in the future.

The pain isn't getting any better - particularly the sensitive areas like my neck and collar. It really is horrible. I'm sorely tempted to buy enough of that stupid emla cream and cover my whole body with it if that's what it takes. I was shaking for most of the zapping and gasping on the more painful bites. I was thinking seriously about getting my face done, but I'm told the face is alot more sensitive... I'm very unsure about it. Maybe the emla cream (or a bottle of vodka) will make it tolerable.

She worked mostly on the left shoulder today, apparently my right shoulder wasn't fully ready... I'll try to take some photos (I tried before I left, but I was running late and I couldn't get a good shot) to see what the right shoulder is like now, and how my left shoulder heals over the next week.

More updates soon.

P.S. The pain sux (hehe, I just wanted to emphasise that in case no one had picked up on that little tidbit of information from my posts :P)

I am sure that what she is doing is effective, but if you could get a newer machine in that place to work on you, and just enough training for her to work with it well, your treatment sensation would be much more tolerable.

Would you believe that many people fall asleep during their electrolysis sessions? I have had people snoreing while I worked on their faces, their backs, and their... umm... well, we just won't go there.

27MHz technology has been a godsend for electrolysis clients who have had the good fortune to experience it. Sensation is vastly reduced. A client of mine was looking at a LandsEnd catalog yesterday as I worked on the left side of her face. Same goes for other areas, but to be perfectly honest, I do have a few clients that still whince for the middle upper lip area, even though they say it is much better than previous electrolysis treatments that they have received from other machines.

There would be no need for EMLA or Vodka if all electrolysis epilators were on par with 27 MHz technology.

You can count me in as a believer in 27Mhz technology. The difference between flash and picoflash is incredible, I could have hours and hours done without a problem. The only way I can describe it is you feel the needle inside get quite warm... and then that's it and it is over and onto the next. As opposed to feeling it go from cold to red *blazing* hot in the course of what feels like a second. (I know it is the tissue heating and not the needle, but I envision it that way during treatment for some reason.) I only hope someday I will be skilled enough to use picoflash myself. Ah, I can dare to dream.

Ok, I still winced a tiny bit when being worked on under the nose. Sorry James

West Coast Skin sells 30 g tubes of Emla for 32 USD or $26 for the generic. It's even cheaper if you order more than ten tubes. They were the only online store I could find that shipped to Canada. I believe they ship internationally. If Emla is only available in your country by prescription, you must send them your prescription.

Thanks for posting that information Squash and Vickie,you don't have to dream about using PicoFlash thermolysis someday, I think you already know what your goals will be when you become an electrologist. Don't skimp - get the best epilator and vision wear there is for your clients, even if you have to borrow the money to do this right. Permanent hair removal is tough on people and we need to get the hair off fast and with the best comfort scenario we can, in order to give them hope and reassurance that the hair is going to be affected for good.

A quick question which occurred to me. Why is it so important to tweeze the hairs away so quickly ? Due to the areas I'm having done, I can never actually watch the probe at work, but it seems like a lot of time is wasted switching back and forth between probe and tweezers (I mean relatively, since it takes about 1 second to do that, and a probe+zap in about 1 second, so it's using roughly 50% of the time). Wouldn't it be so much faster to simply use the probe to zap zap zap as fast as possible, and then spend the final few minutes of a session just getting rid of the hairs that were done ?

The electrologist needs to keep track of the hairs she/he has treated. Treating 3-5 hairs that are neatly lined up in a nice little row and then lifting them out is the best one can do for a densely populated area. Leaving the newly treated hair in the follicle can create infection because the hair is considered a foreign object after it is treated with electrical current. It needs to be lifted out so as not to cause infection and it visibly improves the area as well.

When I do a man's back, I may zap 40 hairs and then return to lift them out if the density is not so much that I can't keep track of where I had been zapping. That increases speed, for sure, but it depends on the situation as to whether that is a good strategy. However, if I am doing a woman's face, that has 100 hairs per square centimeter, I need to do one zap and then lift out the hair and so on and so on. It's easy to get lost in a jungle of hair.

Your comment, "Why is it so important to tweeze the hairs away so quickly?" Just a small point here: we do not TWEEZE hairs, we lift out hairs from properly treated hair follicles with tweezers and discard them. Tweezing is an action that implies that you are paying a professional to do a temporary method (tweezing) when in fact we are performing permanent hair removal, using tweezers as a tool to discard hair. I know it is a pesky point, but others might not seen it as you meant it to be said.

If you have a total of 40 coarse hairs on your chin that are easy to keep track of, then your idea would be a good one as far as zapping all of the hair present and then going back to lift them out. The problem is, what if all 40 hairs were zapped and the electrolgist realizes that she needed a touch more energy to get the hair to slide out better? She would then have to go back and retreat all those hairs, thus, not saving any more time than if she had treated three follicles at a time.

Dee

I wondered whether anyone would call me on the 'tweeze' bit... I thought someone would. Yes, I use tweeze as a verb because you're removing the hairs with tweezers, not plucking them out of the hair follicle with tweezers.

Here's what I've semi-noticed from having my shoulders done (again, I can't see much, so I generally guess whats happening by what I feel in my skin) - the needle goes in, zap, the probe gets swapped for tweezers, the tweezers gently grasp the hair... if it slides out right away, then the probe is swapped back, and the next hair is done. If the hair doesn't fall out, then the probe is swapped, and the same hair is treated with a longer time/more current, and then the same process of testing the hair is repeated.

From my point of view, it seems that if you zapped a large area, and then went through again with the tweezers, the hairs that are now properly treated will fall out right away - those that need more treatment will still be in there, in which case, you'll have less hairs in the area than you started with (since the ones that are treated right are now removed with the tweezers). Then you can do all the hairs again with the probe, and then repeat the process.

I guess in my idea, all that's really different is that instead of swapping the probe/tweezers after every hair, you're doing it once every few hundred hairs. The coarse hair still gets the extra treatments as needed, and the hair is still removed... it's just faster because there's less time wasted swapping probes and tweezers.

I suppose that could work, but how much time saved may be a matter of only minutes??? Do you think that the client would need a rest in between zappings? Could they sustain getting 100 zaps over 10-15 minutes continually and then a rest period of several minutes to test and remove the hairs?

Some hairs need several zaps too. Once you take this and what Dee is saying into account, it will be more time consuming to do it your way and you'll still probably be plucking some hairs by mistake.

hmmm... I guess the pain is something to consider... in my case, probably not, but for people who get the 'good' stuff that doesn't hurt, they could probably tolerate a long session of constant zapping. I assume anyway

I'm sure you're all correct, after all you're the professionals... but something is still bugging me in my mind that just hasn't clicked... I'll keep thinking on it.

Oh, one more thing... would being ambidextrous enough that you could have the tweezers in your other hand and tweeze right away while moving your probe to the next hair make it quicker? My mind says yes, but...

a quick question if you could help me abcdefghijklmn?

i'm thinking of electroysis on my back cause my IPL isn't very effective. but my back isn't that bad and being at a young age of 20 i thought if i can get on top of it now it will be better in the long run.

anyways to my question, how many hairs would you say you get removed in 1 session of say an hour?

because i have like 2 hand size areas on my back that arnt all dark black hair but they are all dotted around and so i thought rather than shaving the area with the black hair and peach-fuzz mix for IPL i could just get the hairs zapped with electrolysis.
cause i would say there are about 400-600 hairs there if that.

would you say electrolysis is for me?

thanks

That is called the "two-handed method." Some prefer it, some don't. My speed is better with the "one-handed method."

How the electrologist removes the treated hair is near the bottom of the list of what you should be looking for when choosing an electrologist.

Electrolysis would be highly effective for these hair patches. Search for someone who does MicroFlash thermolysis or PicoFlash thermolysis. They will have computerized epilators that will speed the hair removal along. Fast can mean deadly with these modalities and I'm not kidding!

Four to six hundred hairs per hour is what you want and it is a reasonable expectation. Many electrologists who have set themselves up with the best equipment can easily reach these numbers, but you just have to find them. If they go slower, don't freak out, you will still get permanent hair removal. You have to deal with whatever your local talent offers.

You are correct to point out that you are young and your hair patterns are still developing. No problem with starting now so you can ride with the hair growth patterns as they awaken with the coming years.

Good luck, but learn how to get the best outcome for your situation. Nothing is more frustrating than giving time and money toward a project to see no results. Learn thoroughly and become an expert on how hair grows.

Dee

thanks i have thought about this awhile and your post has got me excited. thats if you can get excited about hair removal. i'm going for a consultation on saturday to see the electrologist to see what they say.

on there website they only mention 15 mins and 30 mins sessions but i'm guessing they might do hour ones if you ask or i could just do 30mins 1 days and go back the day after and get the area cleared as quick as possible.

it doesnt give away what type of electrolysis it is but it just says advanced electrolysis so it should be pretty up to date.

thanks

A good skilled electrologist using a newer machine and a type of thermolysis electrolysis (microflash, picoflash etc are fastest) can easily remove 5-10 hairs per minute. So you can calculate youself how long it would take. Keep in mind that what you see now is only about 20-30% of all the hair you have there.

We can help you get off to a good start, so come back if you have any questions, but help us out here and read as much as you can about how good electrolysis care should proceed. There are plenty of past posts about hair growth cycles. Hair growth cycles are the core of understanding why you need to be true to a good schedule. Keep punching that man hair and partner with a professional electrologist that has good computerized equipment and decent speed.

We're here for you if you get stumped along the way.

Dee

scottish123: Yes. What they all said I would guess I get a hair removed every 5-10 seconds (hard to be sure since it's mostly on my collar area and shoulders and back) so I would guess anywhere from 300-600 hairs in an hour session. Obviously it depends on the person doing it and your physical attributes. Just be thankful you're not having an entire back+shoulders+chest+neck done, then you'd be in for 6 hour sessions every week!

thanks for your help everyone.
consultation tomorrow so i'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

i'll let you know how it goes.

thanks