Is this possible to do electrolysis on male back and shoulders? I have dark hair and have tried laser but it just has not been working. What am i looking at in regards to price difference?
Yes it’s definitely possible. It probably won’t cost you a whole lot more in the long run than if it was with laser. Electrolysis takes patience and time. It could take 2-2.5 years to remove it all with electrolysis if you are consistent with your appointments.
I’ve been doing my upper arms, upper back, shoulders for about 1.75 years and I have about 70% clearance. Electrolysis is the only thing I’ve ever found that straight up works on this area for me. Make sure when you get an electrolysis that you watch to see that the hair has ends on them. They will look like little bulbs, and if they are coming out with a black end on them, that is the best result.
you said it wont cost you a whole lot more then laser but you say youve spent 11.5 grand so far lol. What do you think im looking at price wise on avaerage for full back and shoulders by the time its pretty well all gone?
How much hair do have? Can you submit a picture?
There are numerous variables in a person’s unique situation that determines cost and that makes it almost impossible to give you a cost comparison. After that, you are up against things like practioner skill and type of machinery and modality used. For example, blend elecrolysis on a man’s back is not very time efficient and thus, up’s the cost. Since we now have thermolysis modalities called MicoFlash and PicoFlash thermolysis, the back project can be speeded along nicely, thus reducing the cost.
I will look for a thread about a client I did in 2006 when I get a moment and you can peruse that information.
Dee
Here’s the thread:
We need to see a picture. Is your entire back covered with dense coarse hair like Chuck’s or do you have spots with relatively sparse and relatively fine hair? That makes a huge difference. Laser only works on dark coarse and dense hair like underarms and bikini hair. I would first look into WHY laser hasn’t been working too. What was the machine and settings used? If you don’t have coarse and dense hair on those areas, there’s your answer already and electrolysis is your only option anyway. It removes 5-10 hairs per minute at around $65 per hour. So you can estimate how many treatments you’ll need, keeping in mind that you have about 65% more hair that you see at any one point due to hair cycles.
Chuck,
Why will do you think your case will take you 2.5 years? I’ve had roughly 130 hours done on my upper arms, back of neck, shoulders and back in 7 months. I’ve had full clearance a few times and we are now going after regrowth. I hope it will only take another 6-7 months. 2-3 years it too much! Everyone says 12-18 months. How many hours per week are you doing ?
Gene,
Are two electrologists still working on you? What type of electrolysis are you getting? Thermolysis would be my guess, like flash, MicroFlash? PicoFlash?
Dee
Yes, I have 2 work on me 2 hrs/week and also one for 2 hrs/week so I’m getting a total of 6 hrs/week done - using thermolysis. I hope to be done before next summer. I get worried though when I hear stories like Chuck’s.
What specifically worries you? Do you not feel that you are progressing? What kind of thermolysis, less than a second or more than a second? What do your electrologists say about your case?
Everything is going well for me, don’t get me wrong. The electrogists that I have are awesome. They assure me that I’ll be done one day if I keep up with my weekly appointments. The thing that concerns me is when I hear stories (specifically Chuck’s) about it taking 2-3 years. I hope to finish in 12-18 months.
Timing is less than a second.
It took Chuck a while to get to his first clearance because he has a lot of dense hair covering his entire back I believe. 12-18 month estimate is for timing after first clearance.
Gene, YOU are not CHUCK. Every case is different. You may have less hair. You have two awesome electrologists working on you and you are doing this right by putting in the time. Keep moving onward and keep the strategy that has got you to this point. It will only get better and better. I would be less enthusiastic if your conditions and strategy was different. I know it is hard and has been hard, but you are giving birth to something that is truly permanent and it will all be a “pleasant” memory for many years into the future.
Dee
Putting in as much time as possible up front is something that I’ve learned from this forum.
Thanks for the kind words.
Consider looking through my thread:
http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/54278/1.html
Picture and costs included.
For me it comes out to be about 2 hours per week is what I go. As of Jan 2009 it will be 2 years for me. I’ve been to about 10-15 electrolysis people within those two years and I’m not really even close to done. I would say on my right side where I have the most hours I am about 70% clear, while on the other side 60% clear.
Maybe all of my electrolysis peformers just suck, or I have a worse case of hair on these areas than most. Be advised I’m doing all the way from the elbow on up on my upper arms. Most of the trouble some hair is on the back to upper arms. Most of my shoulder/back hair has cleared quicker than that hair for whatever reason.
Chuck, do you get cleared in 2 hours every week on the entire area where you want to be hairfree? That seems like too little time for such a big area…
Arm and shoulder work tends to go a little more slowly than back work. There is too much to move in between treating each hair, and less hairs can be treated without changing position.
I have never seen your back, but it could be that you have a really hard case, and it would take one or two fast electrologists to get you completely stripped so that the maintenance would go more easily.
I have had people that it took 7 hours to clear their whole back, the first time, most people average about 12 hours, but I also had a guy who was so hairy that I was only able to go from establishing a hairline on the back of his neck, and strip down to the space at the bottom of his lungs in 14 hours, in one day. Of course, the funny thing is that for me, this is seen as a defeat, while that amount of work is almost unheard of in this industry, if not for any other reason than how many practitioners would even accept to work on one person for 14 hours in one day?
I do know that his regular practitioner appreciates the head start I gave her on that area, and making it easier to take the lower back area on. (Even if she doesn’t know that it was King James, in The Operatory, with The Golden Probe! Don’t you just love a good Parker Brother’s “Clue” reference? 
)
When I first started I was going 4-5 hours a week. The driving all over, and constant irritation is just not sustainable in teh long run.
What I do now is I go and clear the entire area every 5.5 weeks. It usually takes about 8-10 hours to clear my area, and I do about 3-4 hours myself on my lower arms by the elbow. So from here on out, I am only getting about 1.5 to 2 hours of electrolysis a week.
So basically most of the irritation dissipates after 3 weeks, and I can have 3 weeks where I can actually do crap and have intimate contact with my girlfriend.
I have had two lapses where I waited 10-12 weeks due to being on long term out of town business trips with kind of jumbled things up. I am hoping one more year of this and I will be done but I highly doubt it. I seem to be sprouting very tiny hairs on my lower back, which aren’t really noticable yet, but I bet as I age I’ll become more apelike on my back. It is becoming frustrating, and now my chest is becoming more and more hairier everyday so I may try to waste more money on laser for that. I bet once I retire from this earth I will have spent over 100K on hair removal. How sad.
My problem area really isn’t my back at all. It’s my upper arms and shoulders. The hair that is on the back, and behind the neck has literally went poof. I have about 85% clearance on that area, and the hair that is there you really can’t even feel.
Maybe the blend method will be more effective on these hairs as they may be curly or difficult for my electrologists to get to the root correctly. The blend would help the lye kill the hair easier if this was the case I would imagine.
Chuck, did you say that you are noticing increased hair growth over your body? Have you been checked for diabetes, or pre-diabetes? Increased hair growth on the chest, back and face would be an indicator of this condition in men.
i am probably looking at 1500+ hours of electrolysis over years and i am excited…to me, the cost is not relative…i just want it to work…i remember a post by James that said he had clients put in the hours and was done much quicker than others that came in on a more casual basis…i might be wrong on this but my understanding is that you have to mirror the treatments to the hair growth and, after the first clearance, which you should do quickly, get the returning hairs as they first emerge, in the anagen phase, is that the right term? …as well as make sure the practitioner uses the right technique and equipment for the area and hair type you are working on…and take it upon your self to make sure you do appropriate pain management so you dont slow them down…my only panic is that i will be doing the work in missouri, where i dont have a big pool of practitoners to choose from, unlike here in socal…am i wrong?