Far Hills Electrolysis of Oakwood (Dayton), OH / Beyond FAQs

WHAT TO DO BETWEEN APPOINTMENTS
After your initial treatments with electrolysis, there may be some hair remaining that wasn’t removed, either due to time constraints or the electrologist’s discretion (if too many close follicles are treated in a particular area, this may cause problems with proper healing of the skin). Also, newly formed hairs in not yet treated follicles will also be surfacing for a time until those follicles are treated. You need to know what to do with this hair so you will still have enough growth for your next treatment.

Since a nominal length of hair is necessary to guide the electrologist to the location and angle of the unwanted hair, you will need to make sure not to remove the hair. This means no tweezing! If you tweeze a hair out, it can take up to 4 months to grow to the skin’s surface where it can be viewed again and treated. What is not seen cannot be treated.

Shaving is actually an option, as is trimming with small scissors or cuticle clippers, making sure to allow enough time for the hair to grow a bit prior to your next appointment. Neither of these methods involve the interior of the hair follicle, and as such, will not cause more hair to grow (regardless of what you’ve read), although with shaving, the resulting “stubble”may feel like there is more hair.

Depilatory creams are not really recommended for two reasons. One, it is more difficult to control the length of hair growth prior to your appointment and two, continued use may compromise the integrity of the skin, potentially causing less than optimal healing conditions.

STERILIZATION PRACTICES
In this day of HIV and variants of Hepatitis infections, you need to protect your health by insisting that any and every health care giver use hygienic practices, such as basic hand-washing and the wearing of latex gloves. Instruments used during any type of procedure involving contact with tissue or body fluids should be sterile. There are some instruments that merely touch the surface of intact skin and will only need disinfecting. You have the right to not only expect this, but to also to ask the practitioner about their sterilization practices. Anyone following proper procedures will not mind answering any questions you might have. It is your health involved, after all!

The above advice also applies to electrolysis. Although electrolysis is not considered an “invasive” procedure, as it is not supposed to break the skin, the instruments used do come in contact with fluids within follicles as well as at the surface of skin, where various germs can reside. As of this writing, no one has ever contracted either one of the more virulent diseases (HIV or Hepatitis) from an electrolysis treatment. You should still expect that probes come in pre-sterilized, pre-packaged units, used one time and that the tweezers used are sterilized according to Centers for Disease Control standards for the field of electrolysis. This means proper sterilization in either a dry-heat sterilizer or autoclave (steam heat) for the necessary time frame to adequately sterilize. Disinfectants do not provide sterilization. Any sterilization units should be on the premises for your inspection and should also be tested with bio-spore tests at least once a month to ensure they are maintaining sterilizing temperatures. Paperwork on such testing should be available upon request.

Latex or non-latex gloves should always be worn by every health practitioner (including electrologists) who comes in direct contact with either skin or body fluids. Hands of these workers should also be washed prior to donning gloves and certainly between each client or patient. This is for your protection as well as the practitioner’s.

Clean linens or disposable paper cloths should be used, as well, especially wherever your skin touches the table or practitioner. All equipment that is used or otherwise will make contact with a client/patient should also be disinfected after each and every treatment.

AFTERCARE

Aftercare begins the moment each treatment is finished. The first stage is to not touch any treated area(s) with unwashed hands since this is a common route for bacteria to invade healing tissue within the follicle. For some areas, especially facial, I give my clients a reusable, plastic-coated ice cube to apply to the treated areas of skin to help calm any residual redness (erythema) and/or localized swelling (edema). I don’t require a return of these cubes, so many clients accumulate a fair number of them in their freezers, using them for treating children’s (whether their own or their grandchildren’s) scrapes and cuts as well as burns they, themselves, might receive while cooking.

In my practice, I suggest the use of witch hazel as a topical cleaning agent. It has anti-inflammatory properties and, although it contains some alcohol, is non-drying. I suggest applying this for two days, about 3 times a day to clean the treated area, followed by either a thin film of antibacterial cream (usually for the face) or ointment (usually for body areas). Increase number of days if needed.

Sunning or tanning beds, as well as make-up on the treated area within 48 hours is strongly discouraged.

If any eschars (tiny scabs the size of the follicle opening) form do not pick or use abrasives on these. They are part of your skin’s healing system and should be left to fall off in their own time, when healing is completed.