Hi everyone
I just had a quick question
what are signs of scarring?
thanx
If you have reaction that’s not going away after a week or two at most.
Scarring doesn’t show up for several months. Some overtreated clients may need three weeks to three months to heal from a bad electrolysis treatment . If poor electrolysis is repeated for several sessions, then it may take up to 18 months for the skin to restructure itself. If the skin still looks bad after 18 months, then other measures would come into play that only a physician could prescribe.
I’ve had reactions that took over a year to heal, but now no sign remains.
It could also take a week for scarring to appear. For example, I used to get large scabs on my stomach. When they fell off - or were accidentally scratched off :S - the hypopigmented skin underneath was clearly a scar.
I have olive skin and for me, if the skin gets darker, it will always clear up eventually (after up to 18 months) but if it gets lighter it means it’s permanent.
Most pigmentation is not scarring as it goes away after a while. Scarring is permanent damage to the skin. That requires repeated bad treatments on the same area.
Good comment, lagirl. Most don’t understand the difference between scabbing and scarring - they think the terms mean the same thing.
HYPERpigmentation is usually temporary (although often long-term), but for me, HYPOpigmentation, when the skin gets lighter, has always been permanent.
Scarring does not necessarily require repeated bad treatments. My electrolysis scars (HYPOpigmented skin) occurred in the first couple of months that I had electrolysis and have not changed at all in the last 18 months. I had fairly large scabs (not pin-prick, but about 1 mm in diametre) from single insertions. When the scabs fell off, the skin beneath was paler and has remained that way.
Think about when you get a deep cut. After the scab falls off, there is a very pale, shiny bit that will be permanent. It may gradually fade over a decade, but it will always be there. This is the kind of scarring I got from electrolysis.
Pigment changes, be it hyper- or hypo-, are not scars. A scar is a change in the tissue, not the pigment of the tissue. A scar is fibrous tissue, it replaces normal tissue, due to an injury. Hypo-pigmentation is a reduction in melanin production. This can occur without an injury, think Michael Jackson, vitiligo.
Well said, Choice. I was going to say the same thing. Pigmentation is discoloration. It’s not a scar as there is no damage to the tissue itself, only a change in color, which can happen due to many things or for no reason at all. They are two separate things.
I think we’re splitting hairs here.
I’m not a medical professional, but as a native English-speaker, “scar”, to me, means a permanent mark.
Robot Chick was asking what the signs of scarring are. Dee, a professional electrologist, says scarring doesn’t show up for several months.
I have hypopigmented spots that appeared within a couple weeks of getting electrolysis, directly under scabs that I’m sure the experts here would say were the result of overtreatment. 18+ months later, the hypopigmented spots are still there and have shown no signs of fading. The electrologist who overtreated me, who is obviously a bad electrologist, told me they were scars.
I also have a quote from Dee from another post:
White spots are called HYPOpigmentation. This occurs because melanocytes are damaged from injury to the epidermis. The melanocytes stop making pigment (color) for weeks to months. Sometimes it resolves and sometimes it is permanent.
Perhaps I’ve taken this quote out of context. I don’t know.
Whether my hypopigmented spots are permanent or just very long-term I don’t know, but I sure wouldn’t want to get them anywhere else, especially on my face.
Electrologists ARE very sensitive when people say, “electrolysis causes scarring.” A scar is permanent. It is very rare, even with the worst electrologist, to have scarring. And as it’s already been said, scarring doesn’t show up for several months.
Hypo-pigmentation is not necessarily permanent, and I would never tell anyone otherwise. Hypo-pigmentation often does resolve itself. Sometimes it’s as easy as spending a little time in the sunlight to stimulate the melanin. Have all the scabs you had as a child resulted in permanent hypo-pigmentation? If mine had, I’d look like the reverse of a dalmatian.
Scabbing on body areas is common with electrolysis. It’s not due to over treatment.
I’m sorry if I offended anyone. I did think it was permanent (especially since the electrologist who caused it told me it was!) but I have NEVER exposed the area to sun since I got the spots, so that would explain why they haven’t faded at all.
Are large scabs (say, the size of a cross-section of a cooked grain of rice) not a sign of over treatment? I thought it was just smaller ones, say the size of a dot made with a ball-point pen, that were normal.
Oh, no Squash, no one was offended. Know that we love hearing about your concerns. We bristle at such language, true, because electrolysis is wrongly labeled as a scarring proceedure by so many written sources and it scares consumers. This is such erroneous, inaccurate gunk that we have to constantly correct. Fact is, scarring is pretty rare and what people don’t understand is that temporary side effects do indeed happen, but they clear within minutes, hours, days, weeks or months and all is well. We try very hard to keep those side effects to the bare minimum so clients can continue their daily lives without bringing attention, to facial areas especially, that have been freshly treated.
Large scabs, especially when they connect, must never be repeated! Pinpoint scabbing doesn’t raise the antenna like those large scabs do. So, you are right to be concerned about those cross-section size of a cooked grain of rice scabs. As long as your electrologist knows the outcome of such a treatment and corrects herself, you are in good hands. If she is flippant about it, you are not in good hands.
I had a student practice on my arm several years ago. She overtreated a follicle or two and I still have hypopigmentation in that area. I knew immediately that she was frying me and had her stopped treatment, but a consumer may not know to do this. That’s why we all spend our spare moments here trying to answer yours and others concerns about what is okay and what will get you in trouble.
This is all very confusing at times and we appreciate your questions. Those electrologists that pay attention to consumers like yourself are helped to be better practitioners, so thanks for your very valuable input.
Dee
Uh, oh… I have some hypopigmentation on my arms (the area from my pinky to the elbow.) I have had some hyperpigmentation in my arm as well and they faded in time; compared to my “control” arm, the electrolysis does appear to be working well so I kept chugging along. I assumed that since the same general area, modality used and scab size were the same, the hypopigmentation marks would also fade. I wonder if I should be worried now 