This seems pretty weird.  I just started electrolysis, but so far I'm experiencing little to no pain at all from it.  It's especially weird since I have almost no pain tolerance, usually.  Not that I'm complaining, but I was really expecting a lot worse.

And even more weird...the right side of my face feels this tiny little amount of pain, and the left side is like 20 times as painful, but even that doesn't feel as bad as plucking the same areas has in the past.  Has anyone else experienced that?

I do laser myself but this last time I felt every single zap.  And my face felt like it was on fire for most of the day, but today it wasn't to bad.  Shaving was tender but tolerable.

When they get to the most sensitive parts you will feel it, but hang in there.  tHE END IS WORTH IT.

Janet

Quote from: MGKelly on July 16, 2008, 09:22:53 PM
This seems pretty weird.  I just started electrolysis, but so far I'm experiencing little to no pain at all from it. 

Ha! just wait until they treat your upper lip!  >  I had to get prescription pain killers to help me endure the pain from the lip area.  Now when I look back, I really don't know how I was able to put up with two hours (sometimes even three) under the needle.  Ouch! *sighs*

tink

I do laser & electrolysis, and yes the upper lip and chin areas HURT LIKE HELL

I get lidocane w/ epienpherine injections from the nurse before electrolysis, so the pain is the injection part of course which is only a few seconds...BUT, laser they can't use any of that and I do laser every six weeks and that is a painful 10 min. let me tell ya.

When laser get's to my upper lip I'm a complete wimp and crying

Oh well, grrl's gotta do what grrl's gotta do right?

I second the prescription pain meds.  They only turn the pain volume down to a just-barely-tolerable level.  But it helps.

Tink's also spot on about the upper lip.  My routine was endure five hairs, then sit on the edge of the treatment table for a minute or two, then five more and sit up for a bit, then five more...

<joke>
The Standards of Care should be rewritten.  After completing 30 hours of full-on electro, you get your hormone letter. 175 hours and you get the SRS letters.
</joke>

=K

thankfully my hair is thin for facial hair and not much development had happened with it, so I would have less to do.  As much as I fear the pain I cannot wait.

Quote from: Tink on July 16, 2008, 10:02:13 PM

Quote from: MGKelly on July 16, 2008, 09:22:53 PM
This seems pretty weird.  I just started electrolysis, but so far I'm experiencing little to no pain at all from it. 

Ha! just wait until they treat your upper lip!  >  I had to get prescription pain killers to help me endure the pain from the lip area.  Now when I look back, I really don't know how I was able to put up with two hours (sometimes even three) under the needle.  Ouch! *sighs*

tink

I go for four hour electrolysis sessions on a regular basis. The upper lip and the chin areas were every bit as painful as expected. The problem is that once the hair is gone, you're not finished, due to the dormant and transitional hair. The first clearing of the upper lip was only the beginning. Even after the area was cleared, more hair could be felt below the surface.

I use no pain killers of any kind, no creams, no pills. I saw a special on TV, I think that it was a National Geographic Special on the rites of passage that some tribal boys go through to become men. There is an Amazon tribe that requires the boys to collect bullet ants, which are kept in a container with honey and alcohol to anesthetize the ants. The boy undergoing the rite of passage wears gloves, more like flat mittens, woven out of cane. The ants, recovering from the alcohol, are carefully placed into the gloves. For a period of about 10 minutes, the boy must wear the gloves, while dozens of these angry and hung over ants viciously bite and sting his hands. Bullet ants are among the most dangerous in the WORLD, as their bite contains a very potent neurotoxin that sometimes KILLS the boy. After 10 minutes, the boy can remove the gloves, and will remain shaking in absolute agony for two days, recovering in a week. He must do this 20 times in order to complete his rite of passage in becoming a man.

We do not wear gloves with biting ants. We use electrolysis for our rite of passage from male to female. This is what I think about as electrolysis is used to remove my facial hair. When the hair is removed from the lip areas, it feels as  if the tweezers are clamping down as hard as possible and a piece of my lip is being bitten off by an ant, or torn off by the tweezers. The rest of my face hurts or burns in other ways, but as Tink points out, the upper lip is really something very special.  I'm ALMOST half ways through my electrolysis, including the eyebrows. One day, I will look back at all of this, post op, post electrolysis, and it will all be a memory of my rite of passage. Until then, I'll continue to endure it, as everyone else has done before me.

All I can say is that you are very brave, April.  I shiver when I think about it!


tink

Oh crap..... and the majority of the facial hair that I'm worried about is on my upper lip and chin..... I do have stuff going up the side of my face too, but oye, that's where the major work is....

QuoteAll I can say is that you are very brave, April.  I shiver when I think about it!

I don't even know what it is like, but I'll agree with Tink!

I agree. The upper lip  hair is very painful to have removed with electrolysis. It makes me cry.

so for me there was practically no pain, i mean it hurt a little, but not anything worth mentioning

 I am in my seventh month of electro.  I started with the upper lip and still need to get it cleared every session. I use topicane on the upper lip and nothing on my chin and cheeks. It still hurts like hell but I would think plucking the hair would be 20 times worse. I want to start doing pain meds just to help me sit still. I get all ancy pancy after the first hour.

Some more hours in...so far, not too much of a difference.
On the right side of my face, still basically nothing.  Every so often one stings pretty bad, but that's about it.  On the left side though, it's like every single one stings worse than the worst on the right side.

I have no doubt the upper lip and chin will be just terrible.  I've still just been taking ibuprofen about an hour before, but I do have some kind of creme I guess if an area is really really bad.  Apparently I just have to wrap my face in saran wrap to make it absorb...that's going to look pretty

Talk with your physician about getting a topical anesthetic.  I also pop a boatload of over-the-counter pain meds.  i never thought about asking for pain pills.   

For me, the most painful spot is just below the jaw line.  I found that one was even more painful than the upper lip - especially for laser.

They are two different pains.  Electro is needle pain.  Laser is a burn.  Personally, I think laser hurts more.

Chaunte

My electrologist recommends Panadeine Forte, which is prescription medicine and I haven't had time to see a doctor just for that so I just take a double dose of Panafen Plus (Same as regular Panadeine but cheaper) which has the same active ingredients. Doubling it brings the amount of Codeine and Ibuprofen up to about the same amount you'd get from the recommended dose of Panadeine Forte and I can say it's definitely taken the edge off. I'm starting with the chin and neck, can't wait to get to the easy bits   

ok, girls.....just to comfort all you pre-ops.....before surgery you may get to experience some real pain!  though it isn't always called for it's been said that one should do electrolisis on the particular areas of the body that are moving from outtie to innie.  my surgeon said it might be helpful but left it up to me.  the group i was talking with at the time all said "do it!" because of some perfectly horrible stories going around about hair growth resuming in places better left hairless....so i did it.

now....that's fun!

My tech is trying something new.  She has you hold a cold pack on one side and after a few minutes she works that side.  Then you do it again to the next side.  And it does not hurt near as bad.  It seems to distribute the heat. 

Quote from: Janet Lynn on October 27, 2008, 07:14:37 PM
My tech is trying something new.  She has you hold a cold pack on one side and after a few minutes she works that side.  Then you do it again to the next side.  And it does not hurt near as bad.  It seems to distribute the heat. 

interesting, i need to mention this to my electrolosist

Im both looking forward to and dreading eletrolysis. I get to be even more comforted by the fact that im immune to 90% of narcotics including morphiene and dheumeral. Found this out the hard way when went to hospital for a 55mph head on with 3 broken limbs. The way my pain tolerance works is im pretty good at taking quick sudden sharp pain for a short period of time but lasting pain wears me down quick and several hours of this is gonna have me in tears.

Hmmmmm, lasering, I've done two sessions of that so far. The only places where there was some facial hair was the upper lip and under chin area. After two sessions, it is only noticeable on the upper lip. If I shave really close, it is only barely noticeable there. My under chin area has only a few thin blackish hairs.

I think I have a high pain tolerance because the only time I felt any amount of what you might call discomfort was when she did the upper lip. Hell, she even commented about my apparent tolerance for the lasering. I haven't taken anything at all for pain before or after the lasering.