Its 3 weeks now since my second laser treatment. My underarms are much better. I’m down to shaving once a week. My legs are another story. I am still having to shave every other day. My technician said this was normal and it would probably take multiple treatments to see any improvement.
I guess I didn’t mention this before but I’m a redhead. This medi-spa did a couple of test patches before I started treatments and they assured me that the laser would work on me. I know redheads can be hard to treat. I don’t want to keep paying for treatments if they aren’t going to make a noticable improvement, ya know? How do you know when its just not working for you? Is it normal to need several treatments before you see that its working?
It sounds like the hair on your underarms has more pigment and is more coarse, so it can attract laser to kill the hair there. I would stop the leg treatments if you’re not seeing any difference after treamtent 3 (i.e. the hair doesn’t even shed).
I understand what you’re saying Dfahey. The problem is that redheads can be complicated. Normally, natural redheads have many different shades of hair color. If you looked at my invidual strands you would see blondes, browns, reds, blacks, and greys all mixed it. My forearms are a light blonde shade while the hair on my head is flaming red, and apparently my under arms are dark enough to respond to the laser. I went through multiple test patches before I was told that my hair would respond. I guess its possible that the darker hair is responding and that the blonde hair just out numbers the dark.
Yes, darker hair MAY respond, so that is probably the case for your most of the underarm hair, but you will be left with red, blond, grey, clear and white hair. Maybe I should have been more detailed with my first answer about what laser cannot see as I understand that red hair means many shades in between. Those lighter colors of hairs are the hairs you have left after laser and if they don’t bother you,then wonderful. Any practitioner or clinic should be explaining this to paying clients so they go in fully aware of what they will be receiving, test spots or no no test spots. Many laser practitioners do not think test spots are helpful anyway. Many consumers are disappointed when their body does not match the bodies that were seen in the glossy advertisment.
You sound much too smart to taken in by anyones slick sales pitch, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
What really needs to be looked at with red hair is not the shaft, but the bulb. This is one area that electrologists know well and laser techs aren’t really privy too since they don’t see those roots all day long. The darker hairs on redheaded clients may or may not have dark pigment in the bulb. If the bulb is truly red, laser won’t work. Occasionally, we even see a blond or gray hair with a dark bulb, but rarely enough that laser should be considered a real option.
Spot testing should not be used to judge whether you are a good candidate for LHR. If just the root but not the bulb was dark, your skin would still show the same typical redness and swelling immediately after the test as someone with the perfect jet black bulb. Shedding and not regrowing is the true indication of responding to LHR.
Hi there. I have used/owned a number of lasers & IPLs and I find if you find an Syneron Machine that is not governed at 30 joules (goes up to 45) it is very effective for killing red hair. I have done numerous treatments on red heads with this machine with great results. The radiofrequency finishes off what the laser itself cannot. You may have some reddening in the area (the follicle itself is swollen a bit) that lasts a day or two as it is a strong treatment.
I just finished a client for red facial hair and she was finished in 8 treatments! (very unusual for facial hair in general)
Good Luck
Would you be amenable to giving your location and business name, CateMc? What you are saying is truly amazing and I think many people with red hair may be excited to seek your services. Do you follow up on clients a year later by chance?
Seriously, please consider listing your business as many people come here begging for information about someone who is good and can get them results. You are offering hope to people with red hair,something that has not been seen here too often.
The RF, at best, can only induce temporary shedding. It cannot kill with indirect, diffuse RF emissions. If it did that, it would kill everything else in it’s path. The client would end up with microwave streak burns everywhere. And actually, some have.
Do me a favor, look up the initial selling price of Syneron Comets when they were new and untested in the mainstream. Now, go look up how much they are going for on Ebay. And watch out for that diode coupled with RF, that’s erythrothrombosis waiting to happen. Do you know what that is? What it looks like? How long it takes to heal? Is that what a cosmetic procedure is supposed to do to you? And that my friend, is ugly. Pushing medical cosmetic treatments that don’t work is one thing, pushing medical cosmetic procedures that can cause harm to patrons reading this board is another.
I’m also skeptical on these “Syneron” machines especially since you didn’t mention which specific machine you were able to get results with. Can you provide more information?
I looked it up on google and found only 5 hits (not 5 million, only 5) and two of those hits were from hairtell where you bring it up and my comment on it that I couldn’t find it in any medical dictionary. So take out those comments and there are only 3 hits and even those are pretty obtuse research articles.
Would you mind defining what it is and what it looks like. How it progresses, the etiology and how diode laser causes it? Thanks.
I looked it up on google and found only 5 hits (not 5 million, only 5) and two of those hits were from hairtell where you bring it up and my comment on it that I couldn’t find it in any medical dictionary.
Would you mind defining what it is and what it looks like. How it progresses, the etiology and how diode laser causes it? Thanks. [/quote]
Artherothrombosis is the partial or complete blockage of any arterial blood vessel. Depending on the vascular bed affected, it can result in a heart attack, stroke or Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD).
Sslhr, I’m not surprised you don’t understand what I’m talking about, because there have been plenty of times I have had to point things out to you. I think I grew tired of it somewhere around the time you said a microwave works ‘from the inside out’.
The spelling may be a bit off, and terms can vary, but the original article was linked here a bit ago. It was the study done in Isreal on the effects of Diode lasers on adbominal areas. It was in black and white, and was not an ‘obtuse’ article. By the way, please refrain from parroting words that I have used in accurately describing you.
In any case, you subtract from my day. Basically, you have let time pass, and now are asking me to go hunt for the study again. This could go on for years. And, eventually, to support my correct statements, I’ll have to waste the time again to put the article back in your sight. And when I do, you will once again say, ‘Oh that! It’s an old article.’ This gets so tedious, and it’s not that old.
Anyway, the condition is brought about by disruption of the capillary beds and the red blood cells that are within them by the photo energy irradiated from the diode’s particular wavelength of energy. Alexandrites, having a different wavelength, don’t seem to have this property. The capillaries/red blood cells burst, they coagulate, they form bruise-type appearing tissue just below the skin. They will then fade to a deep purple, then to a grey-brown in typical bruise fashion. That is what they basically are afterall, bruises, broken and disrupted capillary beds. They can take months to heal, or even longer. The body seems most susceptible to them in the abdomen area.
ps: By the way, whatever happened to that guy you were going to treat for free on this board?
I find it interesting that every time I ask you a simple question, you come back with an insult. I don’t really care, you are what you are, but I do care about the fact that you say things that aren’t correct. So for example, I don’t remember anything about this microwave thing and so I looked in the search function and couldn’t find any comment from me about a microwave working from the inside out. So here is an opportunity to find the thread where I discuss it so that you can prove me wrong. Otherwise I have to assume you didn’t check your facts.
And just to set the record straight, here is a website that discusses the very topic of how a microwave cooks (heats) from the inside out.
The problem I have with you is the you tend to say things without checking facts. So, you write about this thing called erythrothrombosis.
But I have never heard of it and can’t find any reference. But it sure sounds dangerous. So I ask you about it. And now you say, maybe you misspelled it. Why didn’t you check your spelling online? Furthermore, what you are describing is a bruise. And not all that uncommon. We see them quite a bit, mostly on the lower legs and bikini area and mostly from the YAG. But we also see them with the alexandrite and diode. And in fact, people with easy bruisability tend to be more prone to it. I didn’t read the study from Israel that you quote. I haven’t read every study written so I can’t say why they didn’t see it with other laser systems. I also can’t say why it hangs around for months since the typical presentation is only for weeks. They tend to resolve quickly and don’t have much impact. In fact, I’ve seen a few photos on this website with what appeared to be bruises.
It is no where near as dangerous as you made it out to be.
My problem is that you hide behind a facade. I asked you who you were and what your background was and you never responded. My sense is that you aren’t who you imply you are (my impression from an earlier topic is that you went to medical school but dropped out at some point because of why?), know enough about medicine to be dangerous, and don’t like being called on it when you say things that aren’t correct. Again, no reputable physician would use the word “erythrothrombosis” because it is nonsensical.
You are welcome to your opinion but get your facts straight and be honest about who you are.
And about the person I offered to treat for free, I will leave it to him to comment.