Oh man I remember that upper lip thing! I did a lot of my own electro back then, and I had a dentist who was sympathetic and gave me procaine and syringes to deal with that. I could get all the vicodin I wanted, but I already had a tolerance for it and there are toxicity issues with that stuff, plus it didn't work for the upper lip really.
So I got used to injecting myself up under that upper lip with procaine just like the dentist does when they are going to work on your teeth, and it worked wonderfully. I also used that procaine when I went to my electrologist, and he was able to work a lot faster and get a lot more done, and I didn't feel a bit of it.
Back when I was transitioning laser hair removal was a new thing, and was not working very well. I don't know how it works now, but back then some girls got burned and scarred pretty badly from it. I did needle electro and nothing else.