Laser Hair Removal
Last Updated on by Sophie
Laser Hair Removal
Medically it is not necessary to remove your excessive hair, too much does not have any side effects on your health.
Why some people have excessive hair?
Having too much hair is genetic or due to familial factors and there is no medical cause for it. It could be also due to hormonal disturbances but it is very rare, however some studies has indicated that in some cases weight gain lead to excessive hair, it could be also due to pimples and menstrual irregularities.
Medications such as cyclosporin A, potent topical steroids and surgery can lead also to excessive hair in some cases. tissue grafting surgery may result in excessive hair growth in unusual locations of the body.
Why it is important to remove excessive hair?
Medically it is not necessary to remove your excessive hair, too much does not have any side effects on your health. For cosmetic reasons it is important to look good, simply a pretty women can’t show her legs if it is full of hair and it will be embarrassing for some women to have too much hair.
How to get rid of excessive hair?
You have many methods today to remove excessive hair, and laser is one of them, some of these methods are temporary like shaving, waxing and plucking, within few days or weeks the hair will grow again.
Laser hair removal is a permanent solution because it makes use of intense light source of a specific wavelength to heat up and destroy the hair follicle selectively. The laser energy is absorbed by the pigment within the follicle and the heat generated in the process is enough to “burn” the hair follicle without causing much injury to surrounding tissues. Current lases have epidermal cooling system incorporated to allow for use of higher fluences whilst reducing pain and side-effects especially in darker skin types. Long Pulsed Nd YAG (1064nm) laser devices are safe even for darker skin.
IPL is another laser technology which uses very bright light which is converted to heat and passes through the tissue of the skin until it strikes the hair shafts or the bulb – root – and destroying them.
Eflornithine hydrochloride (13.9%) cream has been approved by FDA for reducing hair growth in facial area, it works well when used with laser and by using Eflornithine hydrochloride the number of session needed is reduced and almost all hairs are removed.
Why laser hair removal?
1- With laser you can choose which hair follicles to destroy.
2- It is a long term solution for excessive hair problem.
3- The side effect is minimal.
Generally laser hair removal works well on dark hair with fair skin, people with darker benefit from laser however more treatment sessions is required.
How to prepare for laser hair removal?
1- Do not apply any waxing agent and plucking of hairs for two weeks before starting laser hair removal.
2- Avoid sun exposure for 4 weeks before starting hair removal with laser, tanning your body under the sun has to be avoided.
3- Shave the hair short 3-5 days before starting laser treatment.
4- Antiviral medication might be necessary especially for people with history of herpes infection if they intend to remove excessive hair from genetal area.
After laser treatment you need to take care of your skin:
1- Protect your skin from sunlight.
2- Continue with your medication if your doctor has recommended some.
3- Treated area with laser is sensitive and taking good care of your skin to avoid infection is important, use emollients to soothe treated area of the skin.
What you should expect from laser hair removal procedure?
A single session might not be enough for some people to remove all excessive hair, for example you need:
- 4-6 laser sessions for armpit.
- 4-6 laser session for bikini line.
- 5-7 laser session for lower legs.
Targeted area might not be totally hairless after applying laser, it is not possible to remove every hair, however remaining hair – that was not removed – will be lighter in color and smoother.
There is also small risk of pigmentation for using laser to remove your body hair, however most of the pigmentation will disappear if you know how to take care of your skin and avoid sunlight.
