Your Questions
Your Questions
Q: Dr. Eppley, I am wondering if I want to do Ulthera and laser hair removal laser at the same time in the same area? The area is my temples to my outer eyes or upper cheek bone. Is that dangerous?
A: While the energies used for Ulthera and laser hair removal is different, their effects are the same…heating up tissues under the skin. Given that both technologies generate considerable heat, I would not do the both during the same treatment as you risk creating a burn injury. There is no benefit in taking this risk for cosmetic enhancements. These two skin treatments should be spaced at least a week apart to avoid this skin damage risk. While they should not be done together, their effects are somewhat synergistic if they are not staged too far apart. The heat creation form both will help create a better skin tightening effect than if Ulthera was just done alone. It is also theoretically possible that the heat from Ulthera may help inhibit hair growth as well.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis,Indiana
Q: I want to make my forehead appear a bit broader. Is it possible to remove some hairs permanently? This I think would help give me more forehead/scalp skin.
A: I assume you mean that to make the forehead broader, you want to move back your temporal hairline. This is an uncommon request as most people have trouble with their hairlines being too recessed or too far back. But can the temporal hairline be repositioned through hair removal? Yes, this could be done through laser hair treatments. Scalp hair is difficult to remove by any method, including laser hair treatments, but it is possible. Because the scalp is thick and the hair follicles lie quite deep with an extensive blood supply, their eradication is not easy and multiple treatments will be needed.
Indianapolis Indiana
With spring now in the foreseeable future, many people will be thinking about getting ready for the summer. As part of some get ready lists, removing unwanted body and facial hair works its way up that list. With the method of laser hair removal widely available, many will seek out these treatments. While laser hair removal is a good treatment method for many, the marketing and advertising claims frequently do not give an accurate reflection of the facts and the science behind it.
Laser hair removal should be best thought of as a hair reduction method. While some patients do get a high percentage of permanent hair reduction, the concept of permanent and complete elimination of hair is not accurate. The biology of hair growth and the way the laser light works makes this very difficult to achieve. When laser hair removal first came onto the scene in the early 2000s, this was naively widely touted. We now know better. If you can live with 50% to 90% reduction in hair, then laser hair removal may be for you.
Not all hair responds well to the laser. Like a black colored car that attracts sunlight and gets very hot, it is all about driving heat down to the growing hair bulb. For this reason, dark colored hair with fair colored skin always works the best. Blonde, gray, white, and red colored hair is not reduced as much because it is a ‘poor’ target. Expect less hair reduction if this is your hair color. Conversely, dark colored skin picks off some of the laser light before it can get to the hair bulb. (which actually is below the skin) Because higher energies of laser light is needed to get past the pigment in the skin, there is a slightly higher risk of skin burns and irritation.
Laser hair reduction requires a series of treatments to be effective. Because the laser will only knock out hairs in an area that are actually growing (less than 10% of your hair in any area is actually active at any one time), a series of treatments over time is needed. A general rule is that it will take 5 or 6 treatments over a 6 month period to get the best result. So while spring may bring hair removal to mind, you ideally should have started last fall!
Long-term maintenance treatments may be needed in many cases. Hair that was initially suppressed by laser treatments can get activated later in life with hormonal changes or medications that one may be taking. While this seems to be contradictary to the way most people think lasers on hair works (frying the hair bulb so that it is ‘killed’), the reality is that the laser changes the hair growth cycle and teaches it to grow differently. Often times, it changes a thick dark hair to a fine and clear baby hair. But certain changes in life can reactivate its original growth cycle making you see hair ‘coming back’.
Laser hair treatment is commonly done for both women and men. (men and back hair make up about half of the patients that we see) While it can be very effective for the right person, proper knowledge and education will determine if laser hair treatments are a good or better value over traditional waxing methods.
Dr. Barry Eppley
