I started electrolysis in mid 2005 - one hour a week. Sometime in 2006, after a 1 hour session on my upper lip, I woke up the next morning with a lip so swollen I looked like a duck. But I had to go to work. To those who asked I said it was an allergic reaction. Everyone else just stared. I was not out yet.
But worse than the swelling was the pitting. My skin had always been smooth but my upper lip (most of the 30 hours of electro I had were on the upper lip) was beginning to look like a mortar field. So I stopped.
I went full time in 2007. I never returned to the electrologist's chair. I shave every day but most hairs are white and with a touch of makeup I can hide any sign of facial hair. After a close shave with a blade, I have presented in public without any makeup.
Yes, it's a pain. And if a neighbor stops by and I haven't shaved, I won't answer the door, and I hate that fact. But I resist the temptation to return to the electrologist because of the pitting issue. (FWIW, it was determined, after much research, that my skin is more prone to pitting than average.)
There have been times when I considered starting electro again but the concept of growing out my face time and again has stopped that thought dead in its track. The only way I'd ever do it now is if I did Electrology 3000. Fly to Dallas, stay for a week, 50 hours in the chair, recover and fly back home. Then repeat as needed. But if that caused pitting, I'd be really upset with myself. So I just live with it.