Red lumps after laser hair removal

[Monique]

HI everyone I just got my first lot of laser hair removal done on my legs.

1 day afterwards I came out in a lot of little red bumps. Some of them are filled with fluids and they look pretty bad.

Is this normal? It doesn't look anything like a burn or even the colour change I was warned of and its concerning me quite a bit now

[genevieved]

I think thats normal Monique.

Are the red areas around your old hairs? I think it just shows that that particular hair has been well and trully killed

[Monique]

Yes the red lumps are around the hairs. Its quite strange where the hairs are there's a ring of fluid and then a red lump around that.

I have noticed the hairs pull out really easily from this point too. Strange. Not like any burn I've seen

[doctornev]

Hi Monique.

it sounds like you have perifollicular oedema which is a perfectly normal occurence after laser hair removal.

Basically you've killed the hair follicle and you get a bit of inflammation surrounding it whilst the body clears away the dead cells.

This is the ideal end point of all laser hair removal - as we are sure we have killed the follicle - and you should get an excellent result.

[claudia]

Will you still get a good hair removal result if you don't have those areas of swelling?

[doctornev]

Laser Hair removal is a real balancing act.

Use too little power and you won;'t get a great hair removal result.

Use too much power and you risk either burns or permanent pigmentation changes.

Small areas of perifollicular oedema is the ideal to maximise your hair removal result. However, it is only one step away from being too much power.

As long as their is a bit of inflammation (redness) around each follicle we generally consider that sufficient power has been used

[starfish]

So if a good result is an area of redness with fluid filled blister looking things how can you tell if they have used too much power and you have blisters and burns instead of hair follicle destruction?

[mrgym]

If the pain goes away after about 3 days, the hairs fall out after a fortnight then its not a burn.

if the pain continues to get worse and worse, you get a terrible skin infection or a large area of fluid under the skin (a really big blister) occur then I would say that is too much power and is a burn.

Laser hair removal can't be that gentle. When gritting my teeth I just tell myself they are destroying the hair follicle with light energy.

The trick is not destroying everything else around that hair follicle