(11-02-2014, 08:29 PM)ClaraKay Wrote: I received my Tria 4X hair removal laser the other day. It has the look and feel of a quality instrument. I decided to cough up the $450 to buy it because of the difficulty I'm experiencing using an epilator.
First, the epilator works fine at pulling hairs out by the roots, but afterward, my skin swells up, forming red bumps that itch like crazy. The only relief I get is putting an ice pack on the epilated areas. The itching is particularly intense in the evening and while I'm trying to sleep. I figured it was just a matter of my skin getting used to this hair removal method, but it wasn't letting up.
I used the Tria 4x on a section of my right thigh yesterday, and epilated a section on the left. Last night the itchy occurred on the epilated leg, but not on the lasered leg. That's encouraging.
As to the pain from using the laser, it didn't bother me a bit, even at the highest fluence level (5). My wife, however, found it very painful at level 4. I think it scared her off. It depends on where on the body it's used and your individual tolerance for pain. Evidently, my pain threshold is rather high.
It's going to take months to evaluate the Tria's effectiveness in ridding my body of hair, and, of course, it's not permanent hair removal. Hair will eventually grow back, particularly if you're soaked in DHT. LOL!
It's time consuming to treat an area because you have to pulse the laser 25 times to cover just 1 sq. in. of skin. It's quite easy to use, but I need to come up with a system to keep track of skin already treated. I couldn't tell that an area had been treated by, say, skin redness or anything, however when I treated an area twice it left what looks like sunburned skin.
The treatment seems to be working because, on the shaved areas that I treated, hairs are not spouting up like in the untreated adjacent shaved areas. Hair growth is halted by heating up of the hair shaft and killing of the papilla where hair growth originates. That burning of the hair shaft is where the 'stinging' sensation comes from. You can feel it under the skin, like a tiny needle going in.
A hair has to be in its growth phase (anagen) for the laser to be effective in killing the hair root, so laser treatments have to be repeated every two weeks for months to get rid of all the hair. Even then, hair will grow back, but it won't be as much.
As I learn more about home LHR (laser hair removal) process, I'll report back. So far, I'm hopeful about the ultimate goal of reducing my body hair. Time will tell.
Clara 
Well, I wanted to get back to report on the effectiveness of the Tria 4x for LHR (laser hair removal). Here's my assessment of it:
It works. It's not a scam. It does take patience to treat an area because the laser beam head is small. It has to be lifted up and set down for each discharge. This is done on a 1/4" grid pattern. You can only use it on skin you can see and reach (unless you have a helper).
I used it on my right thigh with two treatments two weeks apart. For comparison, I used an epilator on my left thigh, but had to give up after two treatments because of large numbers of in-grown hairs that itched like crazy. The laser treated areas didn't have that problem. Most of the hair on the right thigh is gone, but I'll have to do one more treatment to really get it all.
The Tria 4X has five exposure levels. I used the highest strength on my thighs. The pain I felt at each discharge is short by intense. I can tolerate about 500 discharges before I have to take a break. The pain is less intense if you've just shaved (as recommended in the manual) but I found it best to let the hairs grow out a millimeter or two for best results. That way the dark hair absorbs more energy and burns it down to the root.
Here's a photo of my thigh a couple of hours after treating with the laser.
[attachment=7488]
You can see that the hairs that were exposed to the laser have redness around the follicle. That goes away in a day or two, and eventually the hair falls out. The hair does not grow back for many months if at all.
You'll have to retreat an area a couple of times (no less than two weeks between treatments) to get the hairs that were not in the growing (anagen) phase.
As I said it takes patience to cover a large area, making it somewhat impractical for removing large amounts of body hair.
It's approved by the FDA for facial hair removal for women, but not for men. I don't know the rationale for that.
Clara
