PCOS Laser Hair Removal
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a medical condition whereby women’s hormones are out of balance. A blood test can be requested at your Doctors to determine whether you have PCOS, unless severe cysts are not usually removed, sometimes your Doctor may recommend hormone therapy to balance out your hormones.
PCOS causes excess androgen – high levels of “male” hormones in the body that can cause physical signs such as excess facial or body hair. Hormone replacement therapy such as the pill can help to impact the hair growth but this usually does not affect the excessive hair you may already have at that point. It can affect future growth positively and reduce the amount of future sessions of laser needed. Effectively the best solution is a laser to destroy the bulbs and reduce and manage excess hair growth.
Unfortunately, the cause of PCOS is not fully understood. Doctors believe that hormonal imbalances and genetics play a part, it is noted that it often runs in families. Another contributing factor is potentially the overproduction of the hormone androgen. It is a male sex hormone that is always produced in a women’s body, but the overproduction of it could be linked to PCOS.
Currently, there is no cure for PCOS and the treatment is the only symptom-based.
The most common symptoms of PCOS are: Irregular (or no) periods, reduced fertility, excessive hair growth, acne, weight gain and thinning head hair.
PCOS can badly affect a woman’s confidence, as all of these effects are directly at contrast to what we as women generally believe to be sexy and feminine. As a laser clinic, we cannot help with the root cause of PCOS but we can help those in need deal with some of the unpleasant symptoms. Any ease of symptoms, will bring a boost in confidence and allow you to deal with the condition to the best of your ability.
Excessive Hair Growth.
Excessive hair growth can be very uncomfortable for women because thicker hair on the face causes side effects such as scarring, pigmentation, acne, ingrown hairs and uneven skin tone. This is due to constant daily hair removal techniques whether that’s plucking, shaving, waxing or threading, all can cause irritation.
If left too long post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) will occur, most prevalent with those with Asian and Black heritage. In order to stop this from getting worse laser hair removal should be undertaken as soon as possible, otherwise the pigmentation and scarring left from the constant plucking etc can leave permanent damage to the skin.
If you do suffer with this problem do make sure to keep the face out of the sun and wear factor 50 sun cream daily to stop the pigmentation getting even worse. The best option is to book a free skin test and consultation with one of our specialists to talk through the best options whether that’s laser hair removal or electrolysis if the hairs are sparse for a permanent solution.
At the consultation, you will also be informed of the frequency of treatments needed to achieve the result you are looking for and possible solutions if needed to help with your pigmentation and scarring induced by standard techniques of hair removal.
Laser hair removal treatments are permanent handling of excessive hair growth because they work to directly stop the hair follicles from producing any more hairs. After each session, most of the hair falls out!
This in itself makes such a difference to those clients that are used to shaving or plucking daily! The hair is usually gone for 2-3 weeks before it starts to re-grow, then the area is shaved at your next session and lasered again. This constant attack on the hair every 4 weeks reduces the density and importantly the thickness of the hair so that when it does grow it’s less obvious.
That means that after a series of treatments, it is no longer a temporary solution or stop-gap but instead the excessive hair will either be permanently gone or minimally permanently reduced. On the face or hormonal areas such as navel, nipples, chest etc will need yearly to ups to catch new growth.
Maintenance for clients with PCOS or any hormonal imbalance is ongoing, we do not know the frequency until we see how much regrowth you have after completing all your sessions. It completely depends on your hormones, how they fluctuate and whether they will stimulate new thicker hairs to form- this, unfortunately, is not predictable. However, many clients achieve 3-6 month intervals on the face long term and yearly or even more on the body areas.
Laser hair removal treatments are tailored to exactly what you need, most clients need a course of 8 to begin and then are booked for a reassessment to decide how many more might be needed for the second course and the frequency of these sessions for each area, this is completely personalised at this stage.
If you do not see the package you are looking for please contact the clinic or book a free consultation. That way you can tailor a programme to exactly what areas are suffering due to the PCOS
For more information on laser hair removal, take a look here www.pulselightclinic.co.uk/laser-hair-removal-london
* results may vary from person to person
