Hi everyone,
I have lately been overly depressed with the severe ingrown hairs on my chest. I have very coarse, curly, black hair & I am a compulsive shaver & plucker… I’ve grown rapid hair on my arms, legs, chest, side burns, you name it & I shaved every area & the only places I seem to get ingrown hair & unsightly bumps is my chest & bikini area… it is rather embarrassing as a 20 yr old girl to have razor bumps, scarring, & dark ingrown hairs on your chest… I can’t wear shirts lower than my clavicle bone because the scarring goes from my clavicle to my breast! I’ve had this problem since I was younger but more severely since I entered college 3 yrs ago… I am so fed up I've tried almost everything… tend skin, bleaching creams, laser hair removal, rentin- a, tweezing, dermatologists, & NOTHING seems to work… now I have become obsessed with tweezing and plucking the hairs out but I don’t know if I should pluck or not & I’m losing all hope I don’t know what to do anymore!! I live in Los Angeles & I can’t remember the last time I wore a bathing suit! If anyone has any advice it will be greatly appreciated… I’ve been crying constantly every time I think about it because it is so severe.

Have you had a good medical evaluation, investigating the cause of this hair growth? That is your first step. Overcoming depression about too much hair in all the wrong places involves consciously making a plan to get rid of it correctly and permanently, but the source of the problem must be pinpointed and tamed first.

Your chief complaint is unwanted hair. Fixing that will most likely fix the depression.

Dee

Thank you for the input... I went to a doctor to see if it may be my horomone levels but the results were normal they insisted on putting me on antibiotics but they were ineffective so all the doctor could tell me is poor girl I really feel sorry for you... I just feel so defeated.

Research and find a reputable endocrinologist in your area. This is a specialist that deals specifically with hormonal issues. There is medication to level out the hormones available.

For coarse hair, you can seek removal by laser. Please start by reading the FAQs below. It's really not that expensive for the areas you're talking about. I had bikini and underarms done, and it works great for that. It cost me about $500-600 total for each area.

What tests were ordered to specifically address your hirsutism?

I am not sure I had several blood tests but they came out normal... I had 5 laser treatments done and the hair is still as thick as ever i'm just frustrated... I spent $1,500 already and they gave me 5 chemical peels still not getting better if anything it made me scare more!! and the doctor got frustrated that the hair was growing back so rapidly that she intensified the treatments when I left I was sore and bleeding!! I keep hearing about electrolysis can someone please explain it to me and does anyone know if it will work on african american ppl?.

Laser works great on coarse hair and on African American skin, but only an ND:Yag laser needs to be used. It is hard to find people who actually know what they're doing when it comes to both a good endocrinologist/hormonal specialist and a good honest and experienced laser clinic. Since you don't provide any details about the laser machine used, settings, etc, it sounds like you may not have done enough research before getting those treatments and possibly got treated by someone who is not very experienced and/or didn't have the right machine. Please read the FAQs below. It's imperative to do research first for this procedure. There are too many clinics out there who will take your money and don't really know what they're doing.

Electrolysis is great, but since it removes one hair at a time, it's more efficient to treat the coarse hair you have with laser (with the right machine and by an experienced tech). Also, it's important to address any hormonal issues you may have because they stimulate NEW hair growth, i.e. even if you remove the hair that's currently present, your body will develop NEW hair due to the hormonal issue.

Hormonal issues are hard to detect. We have people here again and again who say they were tested and nothing abnormal showed up, then get retested by a good endocrinologist and find otherwise.

So my advice to you would be to start doing serious search with the help of this website, Google, etc to find reputable specialists in both areas.

Thank you... yea my mother is a nurse and one of her colleagues has a clinic where she does laser hair removal as well as a plethora of other treatments I felt like what she was doing wasn't improving a thing but she kept telling me because I am African American that I am prone to keloids and hyper pigmentation so she didn't want to over expose me to the lasers... so she went soft and nothing seemed to change with the hair growth... I have called my dermatologists and cosmetic surgeons and I was doing research that’s how I came across this site but I will definitely take the advice... I don't believe I have a hormonal issue it's just the fact that I have really sensitive light skin and extremely curly black hair and getting laser treatments on my chest hurts so much because I am so thin and it goes against my bones... ugh and I did start to form keloids from the treatments!

Oh, my, you are really upset. I will tell you that a huge portion of my clients are women of color and electrolysis works well for them. You are very, very lucky that you live in LA,CA. There are many wonderful electrologists who are well-trained and use the best equipment available today for good electrolysis outcome. Please read the electrolysis forum and visit www.electrology.com . We'll chat more later.

Thank you!