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“Today we had a really great strategy session for best practices and best outcomes with laser hair removal and out of it I really wanted to discuss a couple of the questions that many patients asked and certainly it’s a topic of interest in consideration for our nurses and that’s alternative technologies for removing hair and it’s like anything where there’s a very big market with unwanted hair something like 80% of women hair and 50 or 60% of men have unwanted hair namely on the back and shoulders and things like that. Whether they’re going to actively do anything about it, be on shaving is another question and I think the technology of laser hair removal has gotten so much better and so much more comfortable that many people are seeking a permanent solution, a very long lasting solution to permanent hair reduction. So with that entrees it does bring up the question of or rather other things out there.
I remember during my residency in surgery and general surgery and had neck surgery I moonlighted for an electrolysis so I worked in the evenings because it is so painful. Electrolysis is basically taking a pin with a tiny little needle, electro on it as energy concurrent that’s pass through it that’s generating heat and that little needle is placed right along the hair shaft and the foot pedal is to pressed and very sharp jolt of heat is generated and if its placed absolutely correctly that will damage the hair follicle just like the hair removal blazers do efficiently without penetrating the skin.
Now it’s a tedious and very time consuming procedure, you have to do each hair individually so if you’re imagining doing your whole back this would have taken weeks or months but electrolysis truly don’t even try to attempt that in one session.
For smaller areas of hair its very effective, we still have an electrolysis device we use and its typically in areas that are hard to ask access particularly resistant hairs or white hairs, hairs that are white or gray have little pigmented in the end and there’s not a lot of them. Electrolysis is still very effective method, it’s just very few hairs and I think in today’s world hair removals gotten to the point where it’s pretty much made the electrolysis take any obsolete with those few caveats that I’ve mentioned.
There are other ways to doing hair removal, if you can imagine the technology or torture that you’re out there are certain devices that you can move up and down on a hair baring area that are designed to grab the hair and totally rip it out. I can tell you that it is extremely painful and much more painful than any kind of laser that you would do.
Waxing is obviously very popular and it’s a way of shaping the hair that brings to mind some of the recent movies that one might have seen where waxing is done about on chest area and this the feeling of it but many, many women do it and get through that and I will tell any women that’s had waxing in the bikini area or other sensitive areas that laser hair removal is far more comfortable and even if it takes multiple treatment are far more effective and efficient as well.
Waxing, pulling the hair, plucking the hair on the body and even on the face rarely results in permanent hair reduction. The one exemption to that is around the brow where one has to be very careful and its interesting I just treated the patient yesterday that had accidental hair loss around the brow where they treated the area with a certain type of laser not intending to get the hair and those wont comeback and I’ve also seen similar types of thing which were very common 15, 20 years ago where all the women would wax the entire brow and put a pencil it in to reposition the brow unsurgically. Unfortunately for them even work one waxing many of them don’t get full or complete hair restoration, hair doesn’t come back, there’s strategies we can do to help with that including transplanting hair if they’re loss with this area but the main thing is if the brows are sacrosanct I would advise everyone to be very cautious and cetaceous in waxing or plucking the brow because those hairs don’t always grow back. With that said, it’s certainly not efficient in shaping the brow and we rarely do brow shaping with laser hair removal which is usually for larger areas and certainly areas of unwanted hair.
I’ve done it in the area at the temple, we have done brows and certain circumstances where they’re very thick but I think that we’re for most patients the technique of plucking, that’s the one area where it’s an efficient and effective way of managing unwanted facial hair. So if you have any questions about these other techniques with technologies or how they compare to laser or even what experienced of laser hair removal, it’s a very inexpensive and very effective in comfortable way of getting rid of a very common problem of unwanted hair on the body and face. If you have any further questions about laser hair removal please don’t hesitate to write me, send me photos, videos if you wish and I’m happy to respond @DrMaas.com, you can visit my website @MaasClinic.com and I always welcome those questions and answers just like we’re doing today. As always it’s my pleasure to help keep you looking your best, this is Corey S. Maas MDTM.”
