The Zapping

[foxgrrl]

Since everyone now knows that I'm trans*, there's really no point in locking these posts anymore. So, now you get to see all of the drama you've been missing.

I went to the dermatologist last night, for another round of hair removal. Supposedly, the amount of pain decreases after the first session…
No, it doesn't.
Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or my cold returning, but my pain tolerance was lower than I had expected. At the end of the session I had noticed that my eyes had been watering quite unexpectedly. I refused to cry in the doctor's office, and I held my composure (mostly) while driving home.

When I got to my room, I sat on the bed with Nyah, and cried and sobbed for an hour or two as she held me. With the exception of dv_girl, no one had ever been there for me when I was crying. [And then I took a shower and fell asleep.]

There is something about those moments, when crying, that are linked together by their own thread. My mind returns clearly to all of the painful memories that I have blocked out during my normal daily life. Every other event in my life that has brought me to tears, that I thought I had forgotten about.

Comments

[wyndhover.livejournal.com]

Oy. No, it doesn't get better, really, until at least the sixth session IME. See if you can get some numbing gel out of them, to use beforehand; it really makes a big difference.

Glad you had someone to cry on/with. That makes a pretty huge difference, too.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Laser treatment? It was my experience that the pain did start noticably decreasing after the first couple of sessions. I don't recall a huge difference between the first and second treatments, in fact the second one was kind of hard for me. I was very distraught afterwards, but like you managed not to cry in the office. As you progress, it does get better.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

Just like those above, it does get better, but not that fast. For me, the first three were absolutely mind blowingly painful, especially since I couldn't afford the numbing cream you rub on yourself about 30-60minutes beforehand. I was in tears in the chair itself and they kept asking me if I wanted them to stop, I just sort of gritted my teeth and told them to continue.

[trema-slo.livejournal.com]

We are so beautiful when we can cry.

You are so beautiful.

[panorphelia.livejournal.com]

Yeesh! And yeah, the pain doesn't get any better. Especially that upper lip ... *shudder*

The approach I took was to get IPL'd/Lasered into oblivion then zapped the hairs with electro as they returned. They came back a whole lot weaker post-laser and thus the electro wasn't nearly as violent.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Aw. *hugs*
Hey.. Whatcha doing Sunday evening? I got some green hair dye (and more red) I was going to do my head green and hang bells and other lightweight stuff in it and be a solstice tree for the rest of the month. I could do yours too if you want. :)

[foxgrrl]

At present, I have no plans for Sunday. So this sounds good. I need to re-dye my hair again too; The purple has faded

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

We've got a lot in common...

I, too, generally replay all the past shit, the pain, almost like putting lemon juice in a cut. It's programming, I know that much. Thus far, I haven't been able to combat it, really. I compensate by basically never crying. And certainly not in front of others. Weakness? Not me, thanks. :p I think I can count on one hand the number of people who have actually comforted me significantly while I was crying. Unfortunately, just to add misery to the madness, the most recent one was C -- less than a few days before she bailed out entirely and shut the door. Way to go fucking with someone's head, there, girl, yeah? Fooled me twice, shame on me...

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Physical pain does tend to unleash emo pain. yay- not.

Feel better. Good that you have someone to hug. :-)

[littlelordchaos.livejournal.com]

yeah thats how i get when i start to cry, i start thinking about my grandpa my past dogs the kid who made fun of me in elementary school, crying brings back all of those memories but i think that overall its a good thing. you know with all those nasty toxins leaving your body, plus after your done you kinda get a high from all the endorphins and stuff.

[foxgrrl]

I'm local to you (somewhat) and I've been gender confused recently. I really would like to talk to someone about it.

Ok, I'll have to sit you down sometime and give you The Lecture™ As it was passed down to me by my great tranny ancestors. Huzzah!

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

I have no experience with this whatsoever, but I heard people mentioned numbing gel... I can't remember the name of it, but there's a burn gel with Lidocaine that just about knocks out your nerve endings (I found this out quite by accident when I got some on my hand while I was "fixing" someone at a BBQ and couldn't feel it for a couple hours).

[foxgrrl]

That's actually the exact stuff that I was using. I coated my face in a thick coating of Tetracaine-Lidocaine goo, before I was zapped [BBQ'ed]. It still hurts… a lot; Below the skin.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I too despise my body's hair and may one day go to drastic (anything involving a laser is either futuristic or drastic) and futuristic methods to remove it. Is the anesthesia they offer there too expensive? Could you medicate your face or body parts that are being lasered with off the shelf mentholated creams like Ben-Gay or Icy Hot? Or would that sort of thing mess up the procedure?

[foxgrrl]

Er… I would think that mentholated creams would only make things worse; You want real anesthetic. A tube of Lidocaine/Tetracaine Cream is about US$20, enough to coat a face-sized area three times. That only makes the top five millimeters, or so, of your skin numb. There's still feeling deep below the surface. I don't know of any place that does Novacaine shots, though I vaguely remember hearing something about that, once upon a time.