Say good bye to tweezing, shaving, depilatory creams and painful electrolysis. Quickly and effectively remove unwanted hair growth on all areas including: upper lip, cheeks, chin, neck, breasts, stomach, arms, shoulders, bikini area, legs, and back. Syneron® Elos is the first and only technology that uses combined light and radiofrequency (RF) energies to effectively and gently remove hair of many colors and types from all skin tones. In this way, achieving beautiful, silky smooth hair-free skin is now easier than ever. Syneron® ELOS hair removal treatments can be performed during the time of a typical “lunch break” and require no “down time”.
The most popular areas that we target for laser hair removal are the underarms, bikini line, legs, back, upper lip, and chin. Some men opt for full-face hair removal to lessen the burden of daily shaving and for full chest hair removal. You can remove hair from just about anywhere on the body, with the exception of inside the ears and inside the nostrils.
Lasers were first approved for laser hair removal almost 30 years ago. To earn those approvals, the process was extensively tested prior to becoming commercially available. Laser hair removal has proven to be reliable, effective, and safe. The most common side effects after treatment include skin irritation, such as redness and slight swelling on the treatment sites. This usually passes within a few hours.
Laser Hair Removal – Before and After Photos
Some people associate all lasers with the visible light seen in sci-fi movies and laser light shows, and may assume that laser energy vaporizes visible hair. There are two problems with that — the energy needed to vaporize the hair could darken the skin, and the hair would still grow back. The key to successful laser hair removal is damaging the hair follicle, while preserving skin integrity.
We match our Syneron laser wavelength to the melanin in your unwanted hair. The melanin gives your hair (and your skin, too) its color. Then, when we direct the laser light down onto those hair shafts, the melanin absorbs the light energy and converts it to heat. The heat then travels down the hair shaft into the follicular base, damaging or destroying the hair follicle, preventing it from producing hair.
As you might assume, the duration of your laser hair removal treatment is proportionate to the number and size(s) of your treatment area(s). For instance, treating your upper lip takes just a few minutes, while treating your legs can take up to an hour. You should plan on between 10 minutes and one hour per session. If you’d like a better idea of how long you’ll need to spend, give us a call and we can give you an idea of the time typically needed for your specific treatment areas.
First, our Syneron laser is FDA approved for “permanent hair reduction.” This isn’t wordplay meant to fool you. The problem is your hair; each individual hair moves through three phases of growth: active growth, transition, and resting. The hairs are only anchored in the follicle during the active growth phase; this is when laser energy can damage the follicle. Every one of the roughly five million hairs on the human body are independently coming and going through the different phases of the growth cycle. The trick is catching as many hairs as possible in the active growth phase. Laser energy doesn’t damage the hair follicles when the hair is in either transition or resting phase.
We’ve found that most of our patients require between 6 to 10 laser hair removal sessions in order to achieve the desired degree of hair reduction. These sessions are usually spaced 4 to 6 weeks apart.
We use a Syneron laser, which provides very comfortable laser hair removal. This laser has an advanced cooling feature that keeps you comfortable during your treatment. Patients tell us the feeling during the laser pulses is similar to that of a small rubber band being snapped against the skin, followed by a cooling sensation. Some areas are more sensitive than others, but these brief treatments are still more comfortable than shaving or waxing every couple of weeks forever.
As mentioned above, the FDA has approved hair-removal lasers for permanent hair “reduction”. This is because it is virtually impossible to catch all of the unwanted hairs in the treatment areas when they are in the growth phase. If the hair and follicle are in transition or resting, the hair is either in the process of being shed or already fully out of the follicle and being shed from the body. Laser energy has no effect on the follicle in these phases because the hair is not anchored into the follicle any longer.
Also, damaged follicles can rebuild with hormonal changes associated with medical conditions, such as during pregnancy, menopause, or with polycystic ovarian syndrome or thyroid problems. Some follicles are partially damaged and they can heal and begin to grow hair again.
Bottom line? Numerous studies show the degree of permanent hair reduction to range from 85 to 90 percent.
For more details on this procedure or to schedule a consultation, please book a one-on-one appointment with Robert M. Kimmel, MD, FACS, PC. Call (570) 622-2900 for our Pottsville office or (570) 455-4252 for our Hazleton office. You can also click here to contact us via our Email Contact Form. Our practice looks forward to serving you!