Late 20s, male, with 3cm brown, flat birthmark on left shoulder. There are about 20 coarse, black, 1"-2" hairs on it that I’m tired of shaving. I’m looking at having electrolysis done, and my main concern is complications involving increased risk of melanoma.
Is there ANY information that suggests risk with electrolysis on mole/nevus/birth marks? This type of birth mark is associated with a slightly increased risk of melanoma and I don’t want to compound that. The only information I can find is the repeated dogma of “needing MD approval…” and I’ve yet to find an electrologist that can explain why theres a risk without sounding more confused than me.
Recommendations on electrologists in Calgary, Alberta? Price and wait is no concern, I want the best.
The birth mark has been the same since I was born, it’s unremarkable, just a brown patch with a few hairs.
It is advisable to have it treated with blend, as the side benefit would be to reduce, if not totally flatten the skin and render the birth mark disappeared.
Since cancer responds to oxygen, people are just afraid to be one of the one’s increasing the chance of that exposure. It is like the electrolysis practitioner saying they won’t treat pregnant women, or if they do, won’t treat their breasts, or bellies, or if they do only with a doctor’s conscent. Nothing says that there is something that would go wrong, but no one wants to be the first person to be successfully sued for something linked (correctly, or incorrectly) to their treatment work.
If you have had the area tested and it has been judged to be a simple growth, or a benign anything, you can get treatment without worry. Your problem will just be finding someone willing to do it.
Yes, this can be treated successfully with blend so you don’t have to keep shaving. I would ask a client to have their doctor check it out first and then write a prescription giving me permission to treat the the birthmark with electrolysis.
Thanks for the advice. Can you tell me more about the blend method affecting the birthmark itself? My birthmark is totally flat already, and I actually have no problem with the mark, I’d prefer it stays, it’s just the hair I want gone.
When one has raised skin, like moles, blend treatments have a tendancy to flatten them. In both cases of raised and flat skin markings, blend can cause the body to normalize the color of the skin as a side effect of treatment. If you want to protect the color difference in this birth mark, you should have thermolysis in the area of this birth mark, otherwise, it may fade, or disappear entirely.
I found some mixed articles on the web in reagards to this topic. For example, on particular site states that hair should “never” be removed from a mole. This article has been reviewed by M.D.s
I am just wondering why there are so many different opinions on this. Maybe because there were no proven cases of cancer from a mole? Are there risks from removed hair that is very close to a mole but not inside?
Whoever wrote this information about electrolysis is an idiot. Most of this information is factually wrong and thus, laughable. This is a diservice to people like you, angel and makes my job as an electrologist all the more tougher as I need to take my precious time to debunk information like this.
The first link is generally fine. Not very detailed, but not too bad. The second has a ton of misinformation. Keep in mind that the first one is an actual non-profit “.org” address and the second is just an advertising site used to make money per click. They’ll put anything on there as long as comes up in search engines and makes you click on links on that page.
