Can someone please tell the difference in pain between the two?? And general differences?

Laser is typical used on darker hair colors.. I don't know about the pain from it though. It also covers a larger patch in one zap.

Electro is what I'm doing currently, It's typically used for light hair, like blonde and blonde with reddish undertones.  Each hair is zapped individually, and depending where you're getting it done, it can be quite unbearable.  The upper lip (for me) has been an absolute killer. My hair is being super stubborn and since my E dosage got doubled the pain has gone up a few levels. 

Neither one is enjoyable.  The best is that the appointments are temporary. the benefits are life long.

I have only done laser...which may end up being a problem dependent on my actual facial hair color, that put me back into a wrist slash mood.

on the pain level most areas of my face on laser feel sorta like being snapped lightly by a elastic band with the upper lip and along the chin/jaw bone being much worse, sometimes a tear or two on the upper lip, less due to pain than just being so close to tear ducts.

I should finish with a bit on me and pain, I have cracked the knuckle of my right hand a few times due to hitting walls and never saw a doctor over them and I once broke my ankle and walked around on it for 3 days because I didn't think it hurt that bad, and the medic who looked at it said if it was broken I would not be able to stand on it, shows him wrong. :-)

long story short I may not be the best judge of pain, though I do hear electro hurts more or at least given how slow it goes seems to hurt more. One is like suddenly without warning ripping a piece of tape off your arm the other is like slowly pulling it off both hurt but not in the same way.

Also laser will tend to be 10-15 treatments of an hour each usually a month to two months apart. Electro will end up being like 100-150 hour long treatments usually a week apart.

Serena

I've signed up for 12 full body treatments of laser, and I had my first session last night.  I think she said it was a Diode laser?  Anyways, took about 50 minutes to do my entire body from face to hands to toes and everything in between.

I barely felt anything except warmth.  There were 2 or 3 zaps out of a hundred that felt a bit of a prick maybe, but that was it.  Then again, she could have had the intensity turned down too low.  I've heard they do that early on.  I'm gonna try to get her to turn it up much higher next time since I literally felt virtually nothing and had no soreness, redness, irritation, or even pinking of the skin afterward, not that I noticed anyways.

Electro is time consuming and expensive, but 100% effective.

I'm doing laser now. I'm 3 sessions in. The pain is variable. Sideburns aren't that bad. Upper lip is the worst. It only take about 20 minutes for the face. I will probably need electro as well. I believe I have some white hairs. If that's the case I'll need it for sure. I would say overall the worst part is the smell. There is nothing like the smell of burning skin and hair right up your nose. I'm glad I'm doing this first instead of electro. I think it will make it easier in the end.

Is the pain you feel like total drudgery?

I've done electro, it's pretty permanent, and its a good release if you are into things like cutting at all. I will get laser when I  have a job to speed things along .

I've done four full-body laser sessions and about three more beard sessions.  The pain ranges from effectively zero up to about a seven depending on where they're working on.  I can't offer much on electrolysis yet, but that's my contribution to defining the laser pain levels.  And it's so worth it. 

Hi Chloe,

I have been undergoing laser treatments and electrolysis on my facial hair for about 10 months now.  The first session I had was a full beard laser session with an Alexandrite laser.  I am have olive complexion, and had a moderately thick salt-and-pepper beard.  The laser hurt like hell.  It felt like my face was on fire for a good couple of hours afterward, despite lidocaine cream. Subsequent sessions were with a Nd:YAG laser, and that was a bit better.  There was noticeable results after a week or two, as well. She did tell me, "There really is no way to make it not hurt and be effective.  You're frying hair follicles in your face."  That said, she also pointed out that there was a wide range of perceived pain.  Some clients said it was nothing, and some were very sensitive.

Once my dark hairs were pretty much gone (two or three sessions really knocked them down), I started on electrolysis.  My electrologist was very trans-friendly and experienced, and she used thermolysis as opposed to galvanic electrolysis.  She said it cause less scarring.  But OMG, the pain was almost unbearable.  I could barely do one-hour sessions.  About 10 sessions in, she finally said, "well, let's try blended (galvanic and thermal) electrolysis".  It made quite a difference in the pain.  It still hurt, but it went from white-knuckle-table-gripping pain to manageable pain.

Now, she gives me an occasional real quick laser once-over (15-20 shots in less than a minute, bam-bam-bam) in addition to the electrolysis.  It's not as dreadful now.  Either I have gotten better at dealing with the pain, or it just hurts less.

I am not going to do my upper lip without a dental block, though. No way.

Quote from: chloeD33 on July 16, 2015, 09:39:02 PM
Can someone please tell the difference in pain between the two?? And general differences?

Ok, here's the deal...laser is expensive but worth every single penny if you're very hairy. Some girls choose ffs first for passing, but I was a tard and had SRS literally the second I turned 18, but what I really needed was hair removal...being fair skinned with dark hair, hair removal was a constant terror in my life.
Electrolysis was my first go. It's not cheap either, but more than anything it can leave holes in your skin. I absolutely hate hate hate that I did it. I was desperate to get rid of the hair--as desperate as I was to have SRS--and didn't care about the consequences. I was young and dumb and figured I could spackle in holes the rest of my life rather than spend hours waxing, tweezing, shaving, etc. But after a session on my upper lip, I was left with fine white scars which took, literally, *years* to heal...and only healed because I had another kind of laser to re-pigment the skin. Talk about a frikkin pain!!! Electrolysis doesn't hurt all that much imo, but having to have some hair growth in order to treat the area was much much worse. I mean, how do you explain having facial hair? It's horrid about electrolysis that you have to feel even worse by allowing hair to be there so it can be killed.

Laser was a god-send. I would have paid or done anything to have gotten lasered and am eternally grateful my parents paid for my sessions. It took maybe 3 sessions total with an alexandrite or ruby(so sorry I can't remember) laser, and the hair was gone---all of it...dead and gone. It took a few months though for the dead bits to work their way up and out of the pores but it was NOTHING like shaving or waxing...i could squeeze the dead bits out and there was no more hair, ever. The only laser that really worked were the ones I mentioned. I've tried every other kind of laser for my legs, pits, etc, but none of them worked worth a ->-bleeped-<-. The only body laser I can recommend is Tria--but that sucker is tedious and takes forever to do large areas. On the good side though, I zapped my cooch in 2 sessions and I haven't shaved since. Pits too--2 treatments and I no longer shave. I did my knees to ankles and they're much better--I shave every few weeks. My upper thighs took longer but I only shave every few weeks now. You can alternate the intensity so you kill more hair faster(there's a whole thing about laser fluence(right word??) and how the beam needs to match the hair so that the energy is absorbed and the hair is vaporized--too much energy and it just spills out around the follicle and doesn't kill the bulb...it's like this whole big thing... anyways the Tria can be set from low to high so you can treat areas with different levels of power to make sure the hair is killed. I love my tria and I'd buy the new one because it's more poweful and you can zap whenever you feel like it.
Just as an aside too, I had dark coarse hair on my knuckles due to family genetics, and after zapping that, I have fine blonde hair that looks totally normal and femme. I guess that's another good thing with Tria--on places like your knuckles and tops of hands, instead of making your totally hairless, it just zaps the hair into super-fine baby hair like a cis-woman...very cool.

it's just my opinion but I would never ever recommend electrolysis to anyone. I was scarred so badly I needed laser treatments to re-plump the divets it left and then another kind of lasering to repigment the white spots it left. Never ever again.

Save your money hunny and get lasered--best thing ever
Much love,
js

That's girls... The thing is I tried laser last year before T blockers... Had to stop and it seemed almost all my facial hair came back :/..... In short the machine I used really hurt I would sweat, swear and shake a bit... It was pure drudgery

Quote from: Tristan on July 17, 2015, 11:05:54 AM
I've signed up for 12 full body treatments of laser, and I had my first session last night.  I think she said it was a Diode laser?  Anyways, took about 50 minutes to do my entire body from face to hands to toes and everything in between.

I barely felt anything except warmth.  There were 2 or 3 zaps out of a hundred that felt a bit of a prick maybe, but that was it.  Then again, she could have had the intensity turned down too low.  I've heard they do that early on.  I'm gonna try to get her to turn it up much higher next time since I literally felt virtually nothing and had no soreness, redness, irritation, or even pinking of the skin afterward, not that I noticed anyways.

Electro is time consuming and expensive, but 100% effective.

Sounds like they had it turned down a little too low. Diode laser is the older style variant; less effective than Alexandrite but it works on lighter coloured hair.

I've had the Alexandrite laser used on my face twice. It hurts  . The best way to describe the feeling is like being repeatedly splashed with spits of oil from a hot frying pan. However the pain has been totally worth it. After two sessions I don't have to shave at all when presenting as male. I do to be my real self, but it takes five minutes instead of half an hour.

I've got another four to come and should be completely hair free by the time it's finished. I've also experienced no regrowth in the areas treated - strangely.

The thing is that - if they're using correct settings - it should cause you a reasonable amount of pain. The reason is that the hairs act like tiny wires - they conduct the laser energy into the follicle where it can act to destroy what's there. If it doesn't hurt then it's likely that insufficient energy is being transmitted into the skin.

From start to finish it takes 45 minutes to do my face; although it can take a bit longer with time for a chat, cups of tea and filling out paperwork!!!

I've never actually had a full beard; it would be described as poor development of facial hair along the jawline, chin and upper lip. I barely had anything on my cheeks for example. As such, I've found the treatment to be effective.

After it's over I put a pure Aloe cooling gel on my skin and feel fine maybe half an hour or so later. The worst bit is that I'm left with red patches where the follicles have been burnt. It kind of looked like someone had drawn a 1970's detective moustache and sideburns on my face with a red felt tip lol!!!  Although that faded quickly.

The most important thing is to wear factor 50 sunblock at all times! This stops melanin formation in the skin and increases the efficiency of the laser. Although heavy make-up works just as well.

As a final note the laser should be burning hair! You should leave the clinic smelling like you've had an accident with a cigarette lighter and feeling awful. But you'll also be elated by the fact that, after treatment, they give you a cotton pad to clean up and hair starts falling out immediately.

My technician did say to me that she's on the enthusiastic side when it comes to cranking up the power on the machine. This seems to be true!  I don't normally get so emotional about a service offering, but laser has been life changing for me. No more wasted hours every morning scraping my skin to pieces with a razor. No more trawling the supermarket aisles in search of the 'Macho Master Five Thousand' six blade cartridge razor and associated preparations and 'proper bloke' after shave balm. My skin is smoother. Dark patches are reducing and the pores that once held hair follicles are closing up. I look younger! Make up sits better on my skin and I no longer have to use concealers and fakery to the same extent. After all, what's the point in covering something that isn't there.

In sum: it hurts, but it's so worth it.

Missy xx

Hmmm.... Could I ask my doctor to give me something for it to not hurt as much?

I did laser then electrolysis.

Laser was for dark hair and the upper lip and ears were painful. The face was bearable. 20 minutes for a face session.

Electrolysis, 30 hours in and 100 more to go for the face. Ears are really bad then followed by upper lip. I have not done genitals yet. 1.5 hour per session. Ears and upper lip cause an endorphin release.

Question. Will going on Estrogen increase my pain tolerance or make stuff hurt more? Anyone?

Quote from: chloeD33 on July 19, 2015, 04:20:04 PM
Hmmm.... Could I ask my doctor to give me something for it to not hurt as much?

The short answer is probably no.  I asked local dentists for shots of novocaine prior to electrolysis and they flat out refused - medical liability was the reason given.  You have to find a clinic that is licensed to administer local anesthetics.  For me, that means driving 150 miles to the Papillon clinic (Dr. Christine McGinn's clinic) in order to get this done.

Quote from: chloeD33 on July 19, 2015, 09:53:57 PM
Question. Will going on Estrogen increase my pain tolerance or make stuff hurt more? Anyone?

Estrogen is said to increase sensitivity to pain, but typical hormone regimens also involve anti-androgens, which tend to decrease hair growth.  Beard growth may or may not be affected. I don't have any personal experience with this yet.  I have done about 20 hours of electrolysis and laser sessions, but have only recently started hormones.

Terri