Hello Everyone, today i went in to recieve my first laser treatment on my legs, bikini line, and stomache. The salon uses a YAG laser which i am told has proven to give impecable results. I have very fair skin so the technitian tested a few spots to see how sensitive i was. My skin had no problems with the laser what so ever, so she bumped up the power and i felt no pain except in the sensitive areas like the bikini line. My skin was a little red for a few hours but other than that no problems what so ever. She told me i will see some results in about two weeks. i will keep everyone posted on the progress. Also i am going to a new electrologist tomarrow to remove the blonde hair on my face. I will let everyone know how that goes as well! Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice. I am setting a goal and sticking to it thanks for your support.
a Yag laser in itself doesn’t necessarily “give impeccable results”. it depends on many factors including the operator’s skill and expertise to set correct settings and coarseness level of your hair. if you have really light skin, Yag laser is not the best laser for you. It will give results at good settings on the coarse hair, but it will have trouble getting rid of fine hair especially as the hair will get more sparse and fine after a few treatments. How many places did you research? What is the name of this particular Yag machine? Can you find out what settings were used (joules, spot size, pulse?).
How painful was the treatment? It sounds like it wasn’t very painful except for a bit on the bikini which concerns me as the settings might have been to low and that is the reason.
You should see shedding of the hair within 3 weeks. I hope you report back.
Also, I wouldn’t have done so many areas at once without seeing how the results are at first on one smaller area for a cheaper price. What color is your hair? How coarse?
Btw, I’m not trying to be negative, but realistic as to what you can expect considering the choices you’re making. I hope you will also report back within a few weeks.
I would strongly advise you to read the FAQs:
When I had my laser treatment I hardly felt a thing-in fact, I couldn’t even tell she had started at first. Some parts of my bikini line hurt quite a bit, but my legs were fairly painless.
I have high pain tolerance for hair removal to begin with, and I had taken two advil before my treatment, but after reading these forums I was pretty concerned. When it happened again at my next appointment, I said something to the technician. She assured me that my settings were very high, and then brought the owner to speak with me just to confirm that the settings were the highest for my skin color/type. I guess for some people, LHR really doesn’t hurt that much.
Laser hurts. It hurts less on areas that have finer hair and more on areas with dense coarse hair, but it still hurts at effective settings. If you can actually call and ask for the machine name and settings, we can give an unbiased opinion on whether those settings are actually “high”. it’s subjective and considering you have light skin, you can use very high settings on a Yag which is meant for darker skin types.
Pain perception is just as subjective as the term “high settings”.
you are right, but you shouldn’t be not feeling anything at all or barely feeling anything. high settings hurt, even if you have high pain threashhold, especially on coarse dense hair.
I too have a high tolerance for pain (currently undergoing tatoo removal, electrolysis and LHR), but if they are doing it right, it should at least be somewhere between pretty unpleasant and outright painful. I have had behind, bikini and upper legs done. The pain varies from location to location but it is there (even if it is only a minor irritation) everywhere.
I have been told by two different electrologists and a couple of LHR techs that I seem to have a pretty high tolerance.
My LHR is being done with a YAG (can’t think of the name right now).
No pain, no gain.
Keep in mind that the better hydrated a person’s skin might be, the lower the settings can go, and furthermore, the less pain a person experiences in the first place, as dehydration increases one’s experience of any pain. It just happens that in the case of hair removal, the more dehydrated one is, the higher the settings will need to be as well.
How is it that dehydration effects laser hair removal? I hadn’t heard that before.
James, with LHR, I don’t think hydration has a huge impact. With electrolysis, yes. But with effective laser treatments, it’s still pretty darn painful at effective settings.
YAG lasers on dark skin do tend to be less painful.
the issue here is not relative pain, but the seeming absense of much pain at all, which usually indicates that the settings are too low.
Let me rephrase. You can have the correct, even slightly high, settings on a Nd:YAG laser and darker skin clients would not complain of pain as much as those with light skin.
I think the point is missed here. My point is that considering the description that person provided of their treatment, I suspect they may have been undertreated. That’s why I asked to find out settings used. I’m just trying to be helpful here and avoid a situation when this person will come back here 8 months later saying that laser doesn’t work, when in fact, they were being undertreated the entire time.
Well, I was the one who felt very little pain.
I have type 2 to type 3 skin, and very dark hair. Maybe I was undertreated, and if so, I’d like to know. They used an apogee elite (alexandrite) at 18J. I’m not sure of the pulse/spot size, but I think they mentioned dthat 20J was the highest they could go at those settings.
This machine has both an alex and a Yag setting, so you were probably treated on the alex setting (or you should have). The spot size for this machine is 12mm I believe. Without the pulse it’s hard to say, but 18 houles is on the low end for your skin type. 20 is not the max. I think that’s 30. Usually people with your skin type get treated at around 22-24 joules to start, though hard to say without the pulse. You should tell them you barely felt anything. And please let us know if you see shedding within 3 weeks.
If you were actually treated by the Yag portion of that machine, then those setting are definitely very low for a Yag and for your skin type.
Interesting. I did see lots of shedding, but not 100%.
I got treated at Romeo and Juliette, by the way.
Just let them know and I’m sure they’ll raise the settings. Those settings were fine to start for the first treatment. They raise them each time and your feedback should help decide that.
I did let them know that I didn’t feel any “pain”, and the owner told me personally that the settings were correct, and quite high, for my skin type.
I trusted that they know what they’re doing, but I also know that you’re very knowledgeable about LHR. So I’m not really sure what to think about the conflicting information.
There are two kinds of hydration in the skin. There is epidermal hydration, for want of a better term, which is putting moisture into the epidermis. This is what happens when you use a moisturizer and is pretty superficial, though it can have a significant impact on the skin. Moisturized skin looks plumper and more healthy. Many of the wonderful before and after pictures that one see are just due a moisturizer, which ultimately is temporary.
Then there is subcutaneous/dermal hydration which is due to overall hydration in the body. If you are dehydrated, your body is going to undergo a number of physiological changes that will preferentially move water from your periphery (skin and other areas) to your central core. And this will also have a significant impact on your skin but usually on a deeper level.
All that said, I am not aware of any kind of evidence that states that hydrated skin is more pain tolerant than dehydrated skin. For example, injecting with needles doesn’t seem to make a difference. There may be a study, I just don’t know about it nor have I ever seen any evidence of that. The only thing I can think of is that people who are severly dehydrated and have very turgid skin also feel really bad. And feeling bad makes everything feel worse. So they may be less tolerant but that seems to be more mediated emotionally and centrally than actual pain tolerance at the point of the treatment. Did that make sense?
And then about laser hair removal. I can’t imagine how laser hair removal would be more or less effective with more hydration, except that with more hydration the skin would be plumper, especially at the epidermis, meaning that the pulse would have to travel more distance and leading to less effective treatment. But that is just pure guess and would be the opposite of what was said.