Quote from: galaxy on June 30, 2015, 09:36:20 AM
I dont see my transition as a checklist. I really know what to do for hair removal (i had 15 laser sessions) and my HRT is controlled my a endocrinologist, my blood levels are good - the last 6 month i got injections. I have a low SHBG - even with injections and 1400 pg/ml - but my docs means that cant be the problem.
You can believe my, i was doing everyhting possible for having good results ... i'm doing diet and excerises. I'm not fat, BMI 20,5 but my body looks not like a female one. Like i said ... transition is not anything of adding some facts of a checklist and if entries are checked youre a woman! Ive checked all, my SRS will be in two month. But i'm still more man than woman. A woman has totally another body shape and look!
Hi, Galaxy
I'll be very specific here, about the hair removal issue, in an attempt t try and help a bit.
First, how I was before transition and now, facial hair-wise:
Before transition, I had regular beard, facial hair and mustache. Color was from medium-dark brown in some areas, to medium dark and very, very light color, almost colorless. Those ARE NOT grays. I've always had that combination of three facial hair colors in my face, so let's say it was like 33.33% for each color, before hair removal and HRT. Btw on July 14 will be my 6th anniversary on HRT.
Now here is the list of what I have done and the results:
1) 14 sessions of laser for face only. Result: I estimate I lost about 30-40% of my facial hair. That would probably be the darkest or "easiest" hairs to remove (white skin plus darker hairs = easy laser or IPL removal).
2) Having been frustrated with the laser results, I tried facial wax removal with my cosmetologist, maybe for year and a half or two, when I just started HRT. I went every month and a half or so. In the first session I did bleed and my face was a mess the next day, but I survived and it never happened again. I estimate I lost 0% of hairs, but I think my existent hairs became less thick and less evident, maybe the color lightened up a bit as well.
3) Having been frustrated with the laser AND waxing results, I went on to try IPL hair removal. I think it was 3-4 sessions, every month and a half or so. I had 0% improvement. But NOW I know that it wasn't the IPL itself, it was rather the poor equipment and technicians what brought up my failure.
4) Having been frustrated with the laser AND waxing AND IPL results, this time I tried electrolysis. There was ONLY ONE PLACE where they did it in the city where I was living at the time. So I booked a two-hour session. The result? A big scar that never disappeared and ZERO hair removal. I never went back again. Again, I blame both the machines and the technicians, not the method itself. Old machines plus incompetent people equals a mess.
5) Having been frustrated with the laser AND waxing AND IPL and electrolysis results (accumulating all of them it would be about 30 total sessions already and about four years of my life), believe it or not, I kept believing I could improve my facial hair situation.
So my cosmetoligist, the one that kindly did the facial waxing sessions for me for about year and a half or a bit more, informed that she had just acquired an IPL machine, to use it primarily for hair removal anywhere in the body.
She is a very intelligent person with a degree in accounting and several certifications for her cosmetology-related work. She has her own clinic, so I am very comfortable with her attention and times, and also the fact that we can discuss at length and more in a friend to friend way than seller to customer, how she is going to do her work, before she even does it. Of course she took the "mandatory" training course by the manufacturers, and then a few extra ones from approved beautician schools, before even attempting to use the machine on a living person.
So, once she informed she knew how to use the machine, I booked with her my first appointment.
The result? Now I got rid of the medium-brown hairs all over my face. So I could say that about 66.66% of my facial hair is gone now, except those super-light, almost colorless hairs I've always had, specially around the chin area.
It took me 14 sessions (late October 2013 until early February 2015) of IPL, to say "this is it, I've accomplished the most I could from this method, I am done now". I think it took me until the 6-8 session to start seeing just VERY LITTLE results, but I stuck to it like a leech, because I had promised myself and my BF that I would undergo AT LEAST 10 sessions before giving up on it.
But here's the "secret info" on WHY it worked this time, as opposed to my earlier attempt at IPL hair removal.
a) The first three sessions I just trusted her to choose the right settings and power for the shots.
b) At the 4th session, I got paranoid (no results just like the previous IPL attempt elsewhere) so this time I politely asked her to please write in a notebook of mine the settings for different areas of the face, and the power used. So she did.
c) So from the 4th session and onward, we were checking the previous settings and making changes to them, specially in the power setting, making it more and more powerful every new session, until she got to the most powerful setting for "face".
d) Having reached the most powerful setting for the "face" part of the machine, and still seeing no visible results in my face at all and getting really frustrated one more time, BY THE 6TH SESSION, that is, almost six months since I started facial IPL, WE AGREED TO START USING THE BODY ELECTRODE, as opposed to the face one. i think this was the decision that really turned things around. See, she was already using that electrode for my hands and arms and a tad bit of peach fuzz I had in my lower back. So she started using a bit more than the top power setting for the face.
So from there on, she used just the body electrode for my face, increasing the power in every new session. I had to take a full Valium tab and a bunch of Paracetamol tabs before each session, to endure the pain which was very big specially in the area above the lips and to the sides of them.
As you can see, we had to learn and adjust on the go, that is the ONLY way we could succeed at getting rid of my medium brown hairs, which had been previously impossible to eliminate, as I described above.
Now, I can stay until four days without shaving my face, until the almost colorless hairs are just too long for me to "pass" *
gosh do i hate this obnoxious word or what? face-wise, even with makeup. That's quite an improvement I think, for someone who started with almost regular male's facial hair.
Now about the other self-consciousness and frustration issues you described, I feel the same way in many respects, and I will be on HRT for six years already, in the middle of the month!
Yet to attack those issues, I do this:
* I never see myself as part woman part man, in the mirror. I see myself as part woman, part something else that is, very slowly, trying to match up the rest of my body. I NEVER EVER see myself as a man under any circumstance, even if some of my physical traits defy such a personal view of myself.
* I have come to terms (as many bio women do as well, it is a huge percentage of them believe it or not!) with the idea that if I need a little help clothing-wise to look a bit more the way I want to (that is, hourglass or pear shaped), then I will use such clothing items every time I go out in public. My body, as it stands clothing-less in front of the mirror before a shower, is always looking "approaching hourglass" but it seems to never ever actually hit the mark, simply because my rib cage and shoulder width are just too much for my hip width, which is actually the same or even better than many cis women my height, but the difference is always the upper body. So, for the hips, I use a pair or even two pairs of women's softball shorts with a bit of padding in the hip area, and that completes my hip with, to a more proportional measurement vs. my upper body. I also wear push up bras with mild padding, to compensate my issues with upper breast development. I also never wear anything half-sleeved or sleeveless in public because I am extremely self-aware of my arms.
So please, try to see the positives. See the mirror and think "I'm half a woman already, that's cool stuff the other half is something that is slowly evolving into a woman as well, so I will be patient and late hormones take its course".
I already made this too lengthy. I was gonna write a bit more about body hair, how mine was almost completely gone about a year or so since orchi, bottom line if you still have the marbles, regardless of your anti-androgen current and past regimen, ¡t may happen to you as well after SRS. For me, I lost tons of body haiir and gained some fat everywhere, but for the first time, I also gained it in the hip and breast area, in specific areas where i had never accumulated fat before.
Cheers
Bibi B.
