Unwanted hair in various body parts may impair ones quality of life. Men and women often feel embraced and uncomfortable having extra hair. It also affects self-confidence and personal relationships. Laser hair removal is relatively a new technique allowing effective, gentle and rapid hair removal. Each person has about 5 million hair follicles, they have different distribution, texture and color, all this factors should be taken under consideration when deciding to use laser hair removal technique. The ideal candidates for this procedure are people with light skin and dark hair. For those people fewer treatments are required to get better results. Dark and coarse hair absorbs energy most effectively; red or blond hair is very difficult to remove. Tanned people with light hair and tanned people with dark hair cannot be treated with usual laser they need a specialized laser technique. People with very dark pigmented skin also cannot be treated using a laser this because they absorb too much energy.
Contraindications for laser hair removal include people with underlying endocrine disorder, people with chronic or active herpes need antiviral treatment before the removal, patients with a history of hyperthrophic scarring, patients taking photosensitizing drugs. Patients with tattoos in the selected areas for hair removal should be informed that laser might change the appearance of the tattoos.
The idea behind hair removal is to destroy hair follicle and thus to prevent future hair growth. Laser is a wave of light energy targeted at specific sites. The wavelength varies; this allows targeting the wave energy specifically to hair follicles sparing the surrounding tissue. This method is called selective photodermolysis. All areas of the body with unwanted hair except around the eyes may be treated. Usually several treatment required to achieve maximal results, this is due to the fact that hair growth in a cyclic matter and laser energy affects only the growing hair. A minimum of 5 treatments usually required each of them 1-3 month apart. Complications of this procedure include skin blistering, skin changes hyper or hypopigmentation, scarring and thrombophlebitis. People with dark skin are more prone to develop the above side effects.
Immediately after the procedure ice packs are given to reduce swelling. Corticosteroid cream may also be applied. Minor skin damage can be treated with topical antibiotics cream. The response to treatment is highly individual; therefore it is difficult to predict the outcome for each patient