I start next week with a local woman very experienced in removing course hair/men. She uses some type expensive numbing cream. Funny woman & would seem to be pleasant to talk with during this process. She only charges $60 per hour in cash or check.

Some idea of what to expect if you have time & have been through this if you can??

Middle 50's medium growth beard, mostly now all grey hairs, partial face hair was removed long ago with lasers.

I have no idea what to expect. With cream does it hurt??  How much is done on each visit? Is there any risk of any type infection? How many treatments are normal???   

Anything would be helpful. I've been delaying this step for years & years I guess because of the anticipated pain & so many hairs to zap. It seemed just impossible so I just kept ignoring the problem.

Thanks,

Francis

Yes it hurts. Even with lido cream it hurts like hell and it's slow. Get ready. Electro is the single most painful set of memories I have.

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on October 21, 2013, 04:50:07 PM
Yes it hurts. Even with lido cream it hurts like hell and it's slow. Get ready. Electro is the single most painful set of memories I have.

I was afraid of that. Wish I had removed all dark hairs early in live with nice easy laser. Regardless I'm going to have this woman "just do it". I've had enough of being trapped.

I think it probably depends on your approach to and tolerance of pain. It does hurt but not as much as being tattooed. I tend to deal with it by accepting that there will be pain and relaxing into it. I find it hurts more the more I tense up.  I do not use any kind of pain relief. 

My electrologist can clear an area about half the size of a 5 pence piece every 20 minutes and my face doesn't cope with more than about an hour before getting puffy and needing a days rest to recover.

Rosie

If only it were possible to remove all those hairs ourselves. I find it much less painful when I take out my own hair when cleaning up any part of the body as compared to when somebody else does it and you don't know exactly when that pain is going to hit. I can't imagine any cream would be able to make that process any less painful.

Thanks for advise girl friends. Right now I'm going to tell her to just "do it". I'm sick of facial hair & not being able to live fulltime without shaving, worrying about hair, etc.... I have all fall & winter & she is close by so now is the time.

I ended up buying a professional machine. Now mind you I had laser years ago and that took care of all the hair on my face besides around my mouth and a line on my neck.

I got the machine last July. I spent at least an hour a day for the first couple months zapping hairs. Today I spend about a half hour every other day and its rather difficult to actually find hairs to zap. I suspect it would be fair to say I am in the eight inning of a baseball game.

Was it hard? Not really once you get the hang of it. The important thing is you need a magnifying light. Thereafter I found that setting a 10x convex mirror in the middle of the magnifying lite and having the light pointed at my face was the best way to see the hairs.

One can find used pro machines on ebay periodically. Anything from Apilus, clairblend, and there are others are good stuff.

Quote from: Katie on October 22, 2013, 03:12:39 PM
I ended up buying a professional machine. Now mind you I had laser years ago and that took care of all the hair on my face besides around my mouth and a line on my neck.

I got the machine last July. I spent at least an hour a day for the first couple months zapping hairs. Today I spend about a half hour every other day and its rather difficult to actually find hairs to zap. I suspect it would be fair to say I am in the eight inning of a baseball game.

Was it hard? Not really once you get the hang of it. The important thing is you need a magnifying light. Thereafter I found that setting a 10x convex mirror in the middle of the magnifying lite and having the light pointed at my face was the best way to see the hairs.

One can find used pro machines on ebay periodically. Anything from Apilus, clairblend, and there are others are good stuff.

Katie, thank you. I'm very glad for you that your game is almost finished. I'm a nervous batter just waiting to get up to the plate with this painful electroysis machine.

That may be a much better solution. I live in a beautiful however rural area & one hour one way trips will become tiring I'm sure.

If you read this and have time which product would consider to the best or are they all equal? Is a new product better? Compared to the expense & travel time I will gladly buy the best possible product. 

I purchased a Tria laser for some dark hairs however as you know it does not connect with light or no type color hairs.

Thanks again,

Francis

There is actually a small risk of infection with electrolysis. Most every tech changes the needle with a new sterile needle for each patient, but there is human error. Everyone's skin is coated in bacteria, and wiping with a disinfectant mitigates it, but not eliminates. So the moment the needle is exposed to skin or whatever else, it's got bacteria that are normally on the outside of the skin about to get pushed into the skin. The needle is going to be in contact with capillaries at least a few times in a long session, small chances for bacteria to get a foothold and cause a problem either locally as a small boil or systemically. When done right on a healthy individual these are issues to scoff at, done wrong on a compromised individual could be disastrous, with a full spectrum of risk in between.

I find the pain fairly tolerable but it depends, some areas hurt more than others (upper lip for example... on my way to a two hour appointment right now!). Some of it probably has to do with the skill of the person doing it, mine is very experienced & I swear I rarely feel the needle/probe going in. The length of time it takes to remove all hair is something she should be able to estimate for you, bit it generally depends on whether your using single or multi probe, the latter means a lot more hair can be removed in a single session (means more pain though!) I'm on multi-probe, about 32 (?) at once. She said probably less than 100 hours for me but I've also got a light beard following my earlier transition, waxings and single probed electrolysis.
Good luck with yours!

Thanks again to all for advise.

I play to stay with this woman that is very experienced with removal of men's beards. This process is not something I think I could preform myself.

She sounds funny & I'll surely need some humor along the way.

Just survived my first upper lip treatment, that part went for about thirty minutes. Have to say it wasn't to bad. She applied the numbing cream at the start of the treatment, so by the time she got to my lip it was totally numb. Still felt some of them but nothing unbearable. She was very happy with my tolerance but everyone is different. Hope yours goes ok!

I did 6 laser sessions total and have had a total of 40 hours of electro (3 hours today- the numbing cream is good for 2, so OWWW!!!).  Well, it's basically all gone now.  I have a handful of fine blond stragglers, but that's all.  I assume some will come back for next time, but I was told to expect total clearance after every session now.  At least I only need to go every 2 weeks now!

The upper lip is the worst by far, and I only had a few left for today that were gone after 10 mins, so it was overall better than last time.  Please grow back somewhere else!  Now my wife could grow a way better 'stache than me, and I haven't had this little on my face since 7th grade.  Seeing the light at the end of that tunnel is awesome.

Quote from: Grace_C on October 22, 2013, 07:37:54 PM
Just survived my first upper lip treatment, that part went for about thirty minutes. Have to say it wasn't to bad. She applied the numbing cream at the start of the treatment, so by the time she got to my lip it was totally numb. Still felt some of them but nothing unbearable. She was very happy with my tolerance but everyone is different. Hope yours goes ok!

Grace, sounds like you are doing OK with the process. I think mine will be similiar once I start. This woman seems to be very experienced I guess like your technician.

Have some fun girl friend to celebrate, give your self a bubble bath or something nice.

Francis

Having lived through the recovery of several surgeries I seriously don't feel the pain from electrolysis is anything significant. On the other hand I have that sort of point of view that you do whatever it takes and dam the pain because its just part of the process.

I will let you do your own homework on what machines to buy. As I said Apilus is a name you will find very often in a pros office as well as the schools that teach this trade.

Katie

Controlling your breathing with deep breaths and telling your body to relax helps some. But sometimes it isn't easy, especially when she's treating areas where every hair follicle seems to be attached to a nerve ending.

When I had my upper lip done it was the first time she'd actually brought me to tears. Very painful, but I also didn't have any topical cream applied either. My lip was swollen for days afterward, I looked like an ape, it was awful. I was hoping to never need a full clearing on my lip like that again, but now my electrologist has gone and moved away to Cali and I still haven't found an acceptable replacement. New growth is starting to fill in all the areas I had cleared and I can't stand it

My electrolysist told me a story yesterday about a trans* client who couldn't tolerate the pain at all, so my electrolysist said to her that she didn't think that electrolysis was her, which apparently freaked the client out so much (she must have really needed the electrolysis) that the next time she came for a treatment she apparently didn't feel any pain at all!

Quote from: Grace_C on October 24, 2013, 03:48:51 AM
My electrolysist told me a story yesterday about a trans* client who couldn't tolerate the pain at all, so my electrolysist said to her that she didn't think that electrolysis was her, which apparently freaked the client out so much (she must have really needed the electrolysis) that the next time she came for a treatment she apparently didn't feel any pain at all!

That tactic is called tough love. Something I have noticed is lacking in the trans community. Seems most want to hang out with people that tell them what they want to hear instead of what is reality. Just something to think about..

Ha, yeah! My electrologist is great, very professional and pleasant and certainly tries to make sure a client is comfortable but I get the impression she's pretty blunt about saying what needs to be said.

I just sit there and take it. My current electrologist has been my best ever. I had 4 laser sessions on my face years ago and it felt like dipping my face in a sink of molten lava. It wasn't very effective either. So, for me, electrolysis is the sure thing.