electrolysis - healing timeline

[inessa]

I completed my first two hour electrolysis hair removal session. I am pleased with my technician, her work area and her personality. I can't say I was completely ready for the pain especially around the mouth area.

She is reducing the beard using a method that won't seem (she hopes) so noticeable to others at first. I am still in "stealth" (is that the right word?) transition. My current job pays well which supports this while process. I know soon enough I will have to explain what's going on but I am planning a long term, methodical transition.

So what I am worried about is recovery time. Its been five days since treatment. The night of and day after looked pretty rough. It seems like recovery has been slower than I imagined. Is that typical? What I mean is there is more redness than I imagined and taking longer to fade than I thought. Someone from work asked what happened and I told them I must have touched some poisen working outside or something. Is my experience typical or atypical?

Thanks!

[Jorja]

Seeing as how we are all diffrent, healing times will vary. Five days seems rather long though. You may want to ask your technician to turn down the settings a little. Around the mouth area is quite sensitive and I can see some redness lasting longer. I never had redness last more than two maybe three days. Usually it was gone over night.

[Sally24]

I know you want to get as much done as possible but you might want to try 1 hour sessions and see if the skin recovers better. I don't show much redness but I rarely do 2 hour appointments.

[Carla Stevens]

I've had a 30 minute session & a 1 hour session.
Apart from my face feeling a little tender & slight redness, I've not really suffered any after effects.
Five days does seem a long time for recovery. Perhaps you need to speak to your technician.

[AllieSF]

Yes, the redness is common and may improve depending on the individual over time. Mine hasn't. But, Summer is coming and I am already getting a tan on my face which is reddish anyway so that helps a lot. Your electrologist will probably concentrate on thicker hairs and jump around your face a bit as she reduces the overall density over time, which will take a long time. I am impatient and am doing 4 to 6 hours a week to hopefully get to a point where I only need a couple of hours a week to clean up what has grown since the last time. I think that that also contributes to the skin trauma that I have. I get a lot of ingrown hairs, little scabs and sometimes red spots from individual zaps. So, my face does not look as clean as it used to. That is another reason I want to get it over with fast in order to get back to hopefully my normal skin complexion. For you, once you get a tanned face and your friends and work friends get used to seeing your reddish complexion, they probably will not remember that it wasn't always there. Good luck.

[Jorja]

Ahhhh, I somehow overlooked that piece of information. Two hours is a long time for an electrolysis session especially when you are just starting. Try 30 minutes to an hour. That will be slower but will help with the redness.

[Tammy V]

I just started electrolysis last month after having a bad experience with laser hair removal last December. I have had three one hour sessions and the technician has 29 years of experience so I trust she knows what she is doing. He started on my cheeks and so far that is the only area we have worked on and I know that is the easiest. I looked at myself in her mirro right after my first hour appointment and the left side of my face was red and that was the last side she worked on. By the time I got home there was no noticable redness although I was sorta puffy the next day. After the second appointment I did stay a little puffy for a day or 2 right around the fatty part of my cheeks but there was no bad redness. I had a birthday party to attend the night of my third appointment and had her work more around my cheekbone and expereinced no redness or puffy swelling. The process is painful but tolerable and she recomended I get a Lidocaine cream and I did get some from my doctor that i used last time. I don't think I used enough to matter and I am going to go heavier with it next time. Also the Lidocaine percentage in my ointment was not as high as she recomended so before we start in the upper lip area I am going to try to get the full strength Lidocaine. I will say that her strategy is to go after the dark hairs first and will come back later for the lighter and grey hairs. This has caused significant reduction of shadow on a couple of square inch area of each cheek and that is encouraging so early in the process. I had to miss this week but I cannot wait to go back next week and will let her work on my chin area some with a stronger coating of the Lidocain/Prilocaine cream and maybe even try a few upper lip hairs.

[Vickie_CDTV]

It depends on how dense one's hair is, how much power it takes to remove that given hair, and whether or not the area is cleared completely or just reduced. If your hair is bad enough and that area was completely cleared, it may take a week or even a bit longer for the swelling and redness to go away.

However, the good news is you have options. Full clearances are best (cheaper and faster long term), but instead of completely clearing an area (especially lips!), just treat a percentage of the hairs reduce the hair density first, and come back again after the area is completely cleared (if the area is not too dense, do a full clearance then, if not do another reduction and do a full clearance the next time etc.) If you spread out the work during your first 1-4 full clearances of a given area you can usually avoid excessive redness and swelling that takes a week to heal.

If you can schedule some sick or vacation time, it might be a good idea to do so if you opt to have a complete first full clearance of most or all of your face. I recommend this for my clients since that kind of intense work might result in redness or swelling that looks pretty rough and takes some time to go away.

Don't forget to practice proper aftercare too! Your electrologist should have given you aftercare instructions; if not, I can give you my recommended aftercare routine to try. It will help speed healing and reduce redness.

...and please, talk to your electrologist about pain management if you need to. I know I say this all of the time, but this is important, and you as a client are one half of your hair removal team. (If you try to discuss pain management and your electrologist is dismissive or condescending, find another electrologist.)

[Kristy_K]

I usually do 4 hours sessions myself. I have even done 30 hrs in one week.

I haven't had any swelling or redness that lasted over a day.

My Electrolysis's has over 30 yrs. experience working mostly with TS's.

I also used Black seed oil on my face after wards.

[Badtranny]

It's all about voltage baby.

Allie and I share the same electrologist and she likes to keep the voltage up as hot as we can stand it. I go for two hours every Wednesday night, and it's usually the next Tuesday before my face is almost back to normal. She moves pretty fast all around the face so I guess you could say the damage is evenly distributed. If somebody asks about your face, why not just tell them what you're doing. If they ask why? Then tell the truth; you hate shaving.

[Kathryn Martin]

I cannot imagine doing two hours without novocaine injections in the upper lip. I do one hour session. The higher the juice used the greater the possibility of scarring over a period of time. My electrolysist uses setting 4 as her highest setting for non upper lip and middle of chin areas. We have cleared area by area which I prefer ever the shotgun approach. Usually, redness should be gone by the next morning and if it persists, then I am told that scarring over time is likely.

My electrologist also uses reverse current with a roller immediately after the treatment which takes all the heat out and in most cases will take redness within 30 minutes except sensitive areas.

[Jay Cee]

The only time I had a reaction similar to yours is when I had just one area (bottom of the beard) worked on for two hours solid. Even then, it only took two days at most for my skin to go back to normal. Having thermolysis done in stealth mode (on setting three, I believe, and one hour sessions), any redness and discomfort was gone within hours.

I hear what you are saying about the area around the mouth (especially the upper lip, for me) being sensitive. Something to do with there being more nerve endings in that area, I think.

[Jonianne]

Most of my sessions are one hour sessions and she uses high settings. I do have swelling for a couple days, typically. When I had a 2 hour session on my upper lip, yes, the swelling was there for about 5 days. When people ask me, I just tell them I'm having electrolysis.

The pain can be very bad while undergoing treatment, but I had some leftover heavy duty pain med from another injury and that has helped 100%. I hope I can get a refill.

[morgan51]

Been having 2 hr sessions all week, my electrologist is here infrequently so I do all I can when she is in town. Redness will be gone in 2 days usually. swelling around mouth normal but subsides quickly. The lip area is very sensitive.

[Aprilrain]

I never could grow a respectable mustache but used to have a goatee, never had sideburns or hair on my cheeks. My electrologist says my hair is sparse compared to most GM he has worked on so I guess I'm lucky! That being said it still hurts like hell on the upper lip and the longer I'm on hormones the more sensitive I become. Thankfully my upper/lower lips and chin are almost done. Electro is NOT good for your skin but thems the breaks, I plan on doing skin peels when I'm finished with facial hair removal because I have sun damage and electro doesn't help. The redness will go away in time it always does on me anyway. There was a time when it would still be red when I'd go back the next week for mor punishment but it doesn't do that now.