Yah I hope it stays that way. It's good that you you get free maintenance, I hope the clinic honours that. Although you shouldn't really need it. Hairs that are going to be killed will be gone in those 6 treatments. Anything else will mostly likely not go as those hairs are not absorbing enough energy to destroy the cells. The maintenance treatments will just force it to shed but it will come back again. Kinda like waxing.
You can't really tell the level of reduction yet, as I doubt you leave the area for longer than 8-10 weeks before your next treatment, so even if it's not working well and only stunning the hairs (not saying this is the case with you) it will look like there is a reduction but the only way to really tell is when you stop having treatments.
I just wanted to say that I've found a clinic in London with the Cynosure Apogee Elite MPX machine. My sister went there today for a consultation as she hadn't started her legs yet and I've not been too impressed with our old clinic for a while now.
The clinic is Premier Laser Clinic in Aldgate East (their other branches don't have this machine). I emailed them initially and got a good reply from the manager. They seem to be doing all the right things. My sister said the consultation was good.
The good thing about this Laser is that it has the largest spot size of any Laser which means that large areas such as the legs can be finished a lot quicker. And more importantly, it has the ability it fire both the Alex and the YAG wavelengths more or less together, so the wavelengths can be blended for optimal treatment on different skin colours (especially those that are type III-IV).
I would not buy a course though, because I think you have to go every 6 weeks and I would not recommend going back that soon for any body area.
Wow stoppit thanks so much for all the info! I'm just getting started on researching laser so your posts have been extremely helpful. I'm considering getting laser done on my arms, legs, and underarms, which I currently wax myself. I have thick hair and skin tone is on the lighter side so iA results will be good. So my question is a bit of a strange one... When I mentioned to my mom that I want to get laser done she was VERY against it. She didn't tell me exactly why but I think it's because she's heard bad things about negative long-term side effects? And I know this sounds crazy but does it affect your hormones in any way? I have no idea what she's thinking/ heard but she was pissed off lol so I didnt want to bring it up again. However I still really wanna get it done as long as there's no crazy side-effects, I'll be paying for all of it myself so not much to lose. Thanks :)
Well, you can only find out from her why she reacted that way. I have no clue. Laser isn't dangerous by any stretch of the imagination. The radiation is non-ionising. There are no negative long term side effects. The worst case scenario is burns or hyper/hypo-pigmentation. Both very rare. The burns are usually superficial and heal as well. I know of very few cases of these anyway. What is much more prolific and I have first hand accounts of from people, is Laser induced growth in both men and women.
Really, the biggest risk is forking out a bunch of money for no permanent long-term results. As long as you do your research into the Laser type, best machine with that laser, and a reputable clinic and have test patches, it should be fine.
Has anyone tried the Alkaline wash for fine hair removal? One of my friends got it done, she's pakistani too and 1 treatment got rid of the fine vellous hairs. I started getting laser on sideburns, but i hate it as they shave the hair to get to the roots, so whatever doesn't come off with the alkaline wash, i'll get lasered, or if the alkaline wash just makes the sideburns lighter, i can live with that.
It's very new in Australia, but maybe more popular in UK.. and the good thing about you don't need to shave!
It's been 1 month and the hairs are very sparce and very few. She knows another lady who had very heavy hair on the lower hald of her face, and she has had 3 treatments in 6 months, and said she was looking great.
The laser people said even laser isn't permanent, hormones and menopause may bring it back.
She should wait 6-12 months without doing anything to the area to see if it has been permanent.
Electrolysis and Laser, if they stop a hair producing hair by destroying the relavent cells, is permanent. We have a huge number of dormant follicles. Hormonal changes such as puberty, menopause and other problems can activate them to start producing hairs. These wouldn't be the same hairs that were treated and can happen when any permanent hair removal.
Stoppit--I've been getting my bikini and underarms lasered for over a year now (with 8 week intervals in between). I was bad and didn't make appointments for like 3-4 months. My results in the bikini area have been pretty good. My underarms on the other hand, I feel like have reduced and slowed down the the hair growth, but not to the point where I see that much of a difference...which is quite disappointing to me. I'm not sure if this is my fault because of being careless for those few months (which I'm sure the place I go to will easily tell me). What do you think?
From all the helpful info you've provided in this thread, it seems to me that it shouldn't take this many appointments to begin with. I never thought about electrolysis until I read what you wrote, so now am considering it....any suggestions in the US area??
JoyandLight, I'm a little confused. You mention 8 week intervals but also appointments 3-4months apart. Perhaps you can list the dates and what you had treated? May make it a bit easier to understand.
Anyway, bikini hair is almost nearly coarse and it's not too dense in the line area. This means they can use good settings from the get go. Appointments spaced 12 weeks apart are fine for this area and you should only need 3 to 4. Even if it went to 16 weeks, most of the hair should still be in anagen phase (the phase the hair needs to be in to respond to laser), so you should get results.
Underarms on the other hand are very dense, have different hair structures and have shorter cycles. Treatments are best spaced 8-10 weeks apart. They will start off at moderate settings (otherwise you may burn or it will be too painful to handle), which will only really affect the coarsest hairs in that cycle. As you continue to have treatments and the hair becomes less dense and the hairs are finer, they can push the settings up. The cycle you have treated at the first treatment, will probably be treated again (this happens many months later) to get the finer hairs the first treatment missed. This is why most people need 6-8 treatments on the underarms (double than the bikini).
If you have been waiting 16 weeks, it's probably too long. But I can't say how much is to do with this or how much is to do with the settings. It's up to you if you want to try Laser again. Underarms are a perfect area, you just need proper spacing and good settings. If you want to go with electrolysis, that's an option too but it will be painful unless you have someone with a modern epilator OR can have local anaesthetic administered. Where abouts in the US are you located?
So i had the alkaline wash, it's not permanent but the hair has grown back very light and sparse after 2 weeks. But i am continuing getting laser on the side burns, although i hate that shaved look. The alkaline wash makes your skin feel waaay cleaner and soft too!
KS09 - I think you need to wait longer (few months) without doing anything to it i.e. another alkaline wash to see whether the hairs really are lighter. I'm having trouble finding out detailed info about it but it sounds to me, similar to hair removal cream, only penetrating a bit deeper. So as well as removing the hair at the surface, if it penetrates the follicles a bit, it can attack the hairs below the surface and make them finer, so when they continue to emerge, they won't be so thick. When that follicle sheds that hair and the next one comes in it's place, whether that is weaker than the pre alkaline wash one is yet to be seen. You'd really have to leave it alone for some months to observe this.
Hair production is only stopped if the relavent germ cells are destroyed, only laser and electrolysis are proven to do this.
shanna - grey hairs on the body and face can only be removed with electrolysis.
Sorry, I see now how my post may come across confusing. Basically I started getting my underarms lasered in july 2009 and have been having appointments every 8 weeks. This past fall-winter (2010-2011) I failed to make any appointments for about 16 weeks (therefore probably missing about 2-3 sessions). But thereafter have been keeping my appointments until today.
My question was, do you think skipping those few appointments in between had an effect on my results? I feel like I've been having appointments for a while now, and should have better results. Like you said, the hair in that area is definitely much more coarse than say the bikini line and is more stubborn...but I didn't think it would be this stubborn! I do realize that they have to increase the intensity with time and the place I go to was very careful in doing that because I had high fear of being burnt. I just had my latest appointment yesterday and told the girl that I wasn't too happy with the results under my arms and she ended up lasering the area twice claiming that this may improve results...not sure if that's true and time will tell.
Lastly, I live in and around the Boston area (new england area). I'd love to hear of any good electrolysis areas in the are if you know of any!
If you started in July 2009 by Fall 2010 you should have been DONE! You should definitely have got very good results on your bikini line (more than 90%) and at least 80% on the underarms - if the remaining hair was fine in texture then you cannot get rid of it with laser and this is typical with the underarms.
And Lasering the same area twice is very bad practice if it's a good Laser. With an appropriate Laser, double passing can risk potential burns, so they would not do it.
Please tell me what machine they were using and the Laser type? And if you can possibly get them later, the settings of your treatments.
Have you been getting total shedding of the hairs about 1-3 weeks after each treatment?
There is very famous electrolysis place in Boston, AVOID it! There is an exceptional electrologist in Buffalo, if you can get there. If you read my previous posts, some electrologists can do a lot of work in one go, so you'd only need to go every 2-3 months. The Buffalo electrologist is one such. I've been to Boston the last two years and I was going to plan to see him both times but something worked out closer to home. I will pm you more details which may help in finding someone in Boston itself.
Oh and I should add that increasing energy with time is just an excuse they use to undertreat. They should be starting off with as high settings as your skin can handle - this is what test patching is for. Any decent clinic will do a range of test patches before your first treatment and then at the end of every treatment, they will test out one or two even higher ones for the next treatment. The first arm test patches I had, the highest one induced some 'scaling' which is like a scabby graze. It healed up without any marks. So, I did not start with that setting but it was used for one of my later treatments without any adverse effects.
If you are being treated with an Nd:YAG (the best option for Type IV and above) burns are very unlikely. It's more an issue when a Type IV is treated with an Alexandrite or Diode, here there is a trade off between what's effective and what won't burn so sometimes they get it a bit wrong.
Yes, settings will increase with treatments as the hair becomes less dense and finer but if they start with good settings, you will find they don't increase much. Generally the joules are the same but they decrease the pulse width.
Wow stoppit thanks so much for all the info! I'm just getting started on researching laser so your posts have been extremely helpful. I'm considering getting laser done on my arms, legs, and underarms, which I currently wax myself. I have thick hair and skin tone is on the lighter side so iA results will be good. So my question is a bit of a strange one... When I mentioned to my mom that I want to get laser done she was VERY against it. She didn't tell me exactly why but I think it's because she's heard bad things about negative long-term side effects? And I know this sounds crazy but does it affect your hormones in any way? I have no idea what she's thinking/ heard but she was pissed off lol so I didnt want to bring it up again. However I still really wanna get it done as long as there's no crazy side-effects, I'll be paying for all of it myself so not much to lose. Thanks :)
There are no negative long-term effects. I've had it done all over (except my face).
I do regret it though .... reason being that when I was pregnant, the testosterone levels in my body reversed all the effects of laser. So I'm not longer 'hair free'. It definitely is thinner, but if I could go back in time, I would have done it after having kids. Hormone level changes backfired. :(