It continues. I am slowing down my appointments some, as I have finally achieved mostly first clearance across my entire back. The little that’s left to clear, we will clear as we have a few minutes here and there from the reclear sessions on the rest of my back. I am now firmly in the maintenance phase, which should last about 8-12 months. I can take my shirt off in public (and do, for swim!) and not stress. It’s great.
I want to thak you for your dedecation to seeing this treatment diary through. It is invaluable to those who are searching for the answers to the questions your experiment has dealt with.
If you want to thank me, James, what’s holding you back? (Joke on use of “want to” in English)
It’s no problem. Once I get through most of the maintenance phase and am finally done (with the original areas) then I will post some charts and data to show the results.
For when an update, Bryce?
Hopefully soon. You thread is my inspiration.
Happy Year 2011, dear!!
You are correct! I need to make new pictures, analyze my data, and write an update. Things are looking good!
I joined this forum today and your diary was the first thing I read. Thank you so much Bryce for this, its an inspiration.
I share you skin tone and hair spread on the back, I also plan to get shoulders and chest/abdomen treated too. Would you mind if I asked you, if you were going to do this all again would you get laser treatment all over your back, then electrolysis to clear up the area?
For your chest/abdomen, I would definitely go with laser. That’s one of the areas that’s easiest to treat on pretty much all men. Back is more iffy due to the nature of that hair.
Bryce I got one final questions for you, and I’ve tried to figure it out through this post but cant seem to find a conclusion. Dont rack your brain over this a geustamite would be just fine, not including the break you had over the misfortune of your previous electrologist how many hours in total have you had done on all the areas together and over how many years. I’m thinking 200 over two years? Thanks
First, I present my definition of areas in the body chart. The shoulder areas cover front and top, and anything over the rounded part of the top of the shoulder was considered back. Shoulders also covered an inch below the deltoid muscle on the arm, so that some might consider it passing into the upper arm. You should see that the largest areas are the upper back portions.
The next picture is the data through today, showing a time history by month and area of the minutes of electrolysis I received. Most of the data are in the upper right and lower left portions of the grid, meaning that I did my right back first from 2007 to 2008, and my left back after a one-year hiatus (when I got 6 laser treatments) from late 2009 to the present day.
Recall that my first practitioner died, so my experiment is pretty much not going to show conclusive results with respect to whether laser was worth the time in money terms. The reason for this is because the two practitioners could have different abilities, work at different speeds, and have different “kill rates” because of differing accuracy.
I can say with certainty, however, that the laser reduced the hair diameter on my left back and thus the 2nd practitioner could use less energy and a smaller probe, resulting in more comfortable treatment and far less trauma to the skin including redness and eventual scar tissue formed (especially on the shoulder).
Nevertheless, we can glean some things from the data that the community might find worthwhile. In general it appears that the first practitioner was highly effective at killing hair, as evidenced by the relatively few minutes that I have needed on the right shoulder and upper back since she stopped working on me in September 2008. Those areas are essentially “done,” although I will continue to pick up strays for some time to achieve the perfectly smooth look I desire. These two areas took about the same amount of time, roughly 2500 minutes each or about 40 hours.
Based on the time spent on my left side, I suspect that I should be nearing the end as well, but I have to give some pause to the strangly large amount of extra time that we have spent on my left upper back, which is approaching double the time that the first practitioner spent on the same area of my right side. Although the reader cannot see this from the chart presented, I also kept details on whether the session was devoted to “new area” or “upkeep.” Using this, I see that the second practitioner took about twice as long to achieve my first clearance for the left shoulder and upper back, suggesting that she indeed works at a slower pace–perhaps even half the speed. I recall that practitioner #1 was very, very fast (and used almost unbearably high settings). Perhaps I will ultimately need twice the time with her, but my left shoulder is already not taking much time at all, so perhaps there are other unmeasurables that are out of my control (or perhaps the laser had a differentially positive benefit on the left shoulder that counteracted her slower pace, but not the upper back). It will be impossible to tell, unfortunately.
So, the reader should be cautioned that practitioner abilities vary widely! I’m not angry at all that the second practitioner works slower, because she leaves my skin looking about as good as could be expected (just some persistent redness that will eventually go away after we conclude). Costs and benefits to everything, my friends.
All in all, the columns show the minutes per area, so it should be fairly easy to figure total hours and costs (just multiple by whatever per-hour charge you find available). I have so far spent about $13,000 on this project.
Later today I will take some pictures of my back and shoulders.
Thank you for the job that you have taken, Bryce.
Do not forget an important factor to bearing in mind, both sides are not symmetrical with regard to the quantity of developed hair.
I have observed this often in men’s back, in underarm and bikini line of women. My client of the chest (diary of an European boy) has developed many more hair in the left side that in the right side in his back. On the other hand, in the shoulder it has been on the contrary, he has much more in the right than in the left.
I am impatient to see photos of the zone, THANK YOU again.
Yes, it was an assumption for the experiment that both sides were symmetric in the amount of hair. It certainly looked that way, but looks can deceive.
I am the same person, promise, less a ton of hair and about 60 pounds from when I started.
My right back is two years ahead of my left back in the healing process (1 year laser on left side and 1 year of left side electrolysis). I sure do need to work on my neck some…God damn ingrown hairs.
Left shoulder looks okay in normal lighting to the naked eye. Camera sure shows every flaw.
Right shoulder is also two years ahead of the left in healing. Looks pretty done, right? Just some scarring from digging out ingrowns and from very high treatment energy. Better than the hair.
Front side. Not much to say here except that I feel compelled to do my chest next. Christ, it never ends. That used to be on my shoulders and back with the same density and thickness. I feel so much freer, because I can always trim the chest pretty easily.
Congratulation Bryce!
You have recovered the skin that you had at the age of 10. The most beautiful skin, certainly.
I hope and wish to enjoy much your new appearance and that you are very happy. You have earned it!
Nevermore you will be the most “half hairy” man of the world. 
Thank you for giving us this HAPPY end. 
Oh, I have forgotten to say: A lot of care with the Sun, now you must protect your skin, it is much more vulnerable to the solar beams.
Cuídese mucho, Bryce.
Josefa
You can always just have a few laser treatments to make the chest hair finer and less dense. Shaving won’t create a shadow then and I doubt it will worry you. But yes, as I found out, hair removal is addictive!
Impressive photos. Thanks for the update. I actually don’t see much damage or scarring in these. I bet you have to look pretty close. An average person may not even notice 
I don’t think I’m quite done, although I can definitely go in less often now. The problem is that I now want to do other areas, such as making the sides and flanks nice, giving myself an armpit instead of a continuous field of hair, blending the back of my neck to my now-clear back, and so on. God help me, I have even thought of doing some leg, groin, and buttocks because it would be more comfortable when I race my bike.
Will continue to log every appointment so that I can always share how long it took every area, but I don’t think experiments are in my future that would make me half-hairy. I will leave it to some other person to take that on. Once was enough.
Any updates
Dear Jossie,
For how long after electrolysis does one have to be very careful of the sun…weeks, months, years ???
Hi Danika. Ideally, to avoid the sun during the first 3 months. Then, you should start with small daily doses of sun and keep this good habit all your life, whether it has made electrolysis or not.
It was unavoidable to be exposed to sun today so i made sure to use high quality zinc sunscreen and a hat since me electro treatement was only two days prior. I felt bad slathering the sensitive skin with sunscreen but was more concerned about not having the protection. The problem was at the end of the day in removing the sun screen i may have taken off the pin prick scabs . It is very hard to keep the skin sterile ,and be gentle , AND also use sunscreen which really needs to be removed afterwards.
Hard to believe it has been 18 months since I dropped in to say hello, but that’s the way permanent hair removal works. You almost forget about it.
I still see my electrologist in West LA a couple times a month, cleaning up my sides, neck, armpits, lower abdomen, and slowly working my way up to my chest. There’s really no rush, but enjoy the thinning and improving skin over the years. Maybe I’ll post some pictures, especially of my back to show you all how it has healed up.
Hope everyone is well!