Transitioning 101 - Electrolysis

It's been a good while since I've written something for this little series of articles, but now that I've had over 20 Electrolysis sessions I thought I could give my few cents on that subject.  As I said in the piece on laser hair removal (henceforth "LHR"), I can't speak for every Trans-woman, or really any Trans-woman other than myself, but for me one of the biggest "issues" I've had with my transition was facial and body hair.

Now as I said when I wrote about LHR, quite a bit of what I write about in general tends to be "Your Mileage May Vary" (YMMV).  The same can be said for a great many things in life, but when it comes to transitioning, it seems to me to be even more common.  Now I don't feel that electrolysis falls as much at the far end of the YMMV spectrum as LHR does, but experiences will DEFINITELY vary - and likely a lot.  Anyone else's experience may be better, may be worse, but in all likelihood different.

As with LHR there are definitely some pros and cons - let's touch on a couple of each:

• Pro - is generally considered the only "permanent hair removal option", though some dispute that.  
• Con - works one hair at a time so it's far more tedious than LHR.
• Pro - skin/hair colors aren't an issue like they are with most (virtually all?) LHR techniques.  
• Con - unlike laser which works best with a good clean shave, electrolysis needs some hair growth.  In my case that was at least 2 days, but 3 was better.  

So beyond those couple of pros/cons, what else should be considered?  Well among those things, at least for most of us who are transitioning, would be cost.  As with LHR, there are definitely variances in cost; though at least in my area it wasn't as big of a variance, most places averaged about $1/minute at least if you were doing 30 or 60 minute blocks.  Where I ended up going the numbers worked out to pretty much exactly $1/minute PLUS $5 which seemed reasonable in my research and truthfully the place was recommended by the tech who handled my LHR.  Obviously that could be a pro or a con, but I trust her and thought her recommendation was a good one.

For me, time was also a big consideration as even the best technicians can only do so many individual hairs per minute whereas the laser can hit a pretty good sized area in that same time.  Now for the LHR on my face we were doing it every few weeks so when I switched to electrolysis I was doing several sessions in the same time frame.  Now this mean that the electrolysis was costing me more than the LHR but it was in smaller chunks so in some ways it was nicer.  However, that also means more lost time commuting to/from the sessions.

As with LHR, a big consideration, especially for those that are full-time, is scheduling.  For me, and I suspect many, electrolysis is a bigger concern with this since you do need some hair growth.  As I work from home some might think what is the big deal?  Well as I needed a good 2 days of growth it meant I really had little chance of passing on those two days before a session.  This could be mitigated somewhat by scheduling on the weekend, but those appointments often aren't easy to come by depending upon where you are going.  Additionally for me, my face didn't take electrolysis as well as it did LHR so for a couple of days afterwards I really couldn't do makeup or go out and expect to pass.  Well put those together with more or less weekly appointments and I wasn't getting out very much.  I'm not complaining, just passing along *my experience*.  And before someone says it, *no* - I do *not* believe it was an issue with my technician or her technique.  I firmly believe it was simply my face.  I'm not trying to be discouraging, rather just trying to convey *my personal experience*.  I'd make the same decision over again if that helps.

The last consideration I want to touch on is pain.  Now this one really varies from person to person but for me electrolysis was *far more painful* than LHR.  Now before anyone leaps to conclusions it was NOT an apples to apples comparison.  In the case of LHR the facial session(s) were much quicker than electrolysis.  LHR was maybe 10 minutes for my face (usually less); and my electrolysis was anywhere from 30-60 minutes.  Even if the pain would have been equal to start with, putting up with it for <10 minutes versus 30-60 minutes - well most of us are going to wear down.  Secondly, the longer time of the session meant the numbing cream would be less effective by the end of the electrolysis than it would be for LHR.  Additionally for electrolysis I was applying it myself before heading into the session and for LHR I was arriving early and they were doing it.  Perhaps it could have been handled the same way for electrolysis, but I didn't ask as I started having my Doctor prescribe the cream and paying my co-pay ($4 I believe) in lieu of getting it from the LHR place when I went there were it ran me "their cost" (or at least that's what they profess and I have no reason to not believe them) which was something like $45.  I'm sure I wasn't as effective doing it myself and considering my drive time to my electrolysis appointments, sometimes it was on earlier than it should have been and sometimes I did a less than stellar job with the plastic wrap over it.

As I did with LHR, I won't really delve into the actual process, though if anyone wants a "play by play", simply drop me an email.  However, I do still want to make a few points based upon my experiences and questions I've seen elsewhere.  I'm going to do this in sort of a Q&A format as I did with some of the other posts in this series.  And again, these are my experiences, YMMV.

• Does it hurt?
  
  Again, as with LHR I've ran across people that maintain it doesn't hurt at all.  *I* on the other hand think it hurts *a lot* - even more than LHR.  Though I've seen people who say if it's done right it really doesn't hurt.  I'll say the same here as I did in the LHR post - good for them, but I don't think that's a general statement for the majority of us.  I'd recommend being prepared for some pain and if per chance it doesn't hurt for you - then awesome.  But going in expecting it to be painless because it was for someone else is just begging to disappoint you.

• What can I do about the pain?
  
  Well, as with LHR I did my first session without anything - and as with LHR I regretted that a bit - though I stand by the choice as I felt I needed to know what it felt like without anything to determine what I could/should do about it.  Again, as with LHR I opted for the Lidocaine numbing cream for my face and that helps; sometimes more than others - generally if my appointments were on the weekends or later in the day where work wasn't an issue I seemed to do a better job with it and it worked better.  Regardless, there are some areas that were just horrible regardless.  The upper lip, especially closer to the nose for me was *really* bad.  The other place that was really bad for me was the lip line - think where you'd like lip liner.  Now ironically enough for me, the one place it really didn't hurt me at all was also on the lip line, but right at each corner of my mouth.  I barely felt those - with or without the cream.  A

• How many sessions will it take?
  
  *A LOT OF THEM!*  Seriously this is a hair by hair process and unless you are blessed with little to no hair either naturally or via LHR, it's going to take a while.  As with many others, if LHR can work for you I would *strongly* recommend it first to get what it can and then use electrolysis to "clean things up".  

• I need/want to have my "private parts" done, how can I deal with showing them to someone?
  
  The answer for this to me is the same as the one I gave for LHR, so I'll leave that below.  That being said I did *not* have any electrolysis done "down there".  I can't imagine how painful it would be *for me* based upon my face.  As I've mentioned elsewhere, I did have some LHR done down there, but frankly when/if I approach surgery I will seek a surgeon that does not require hair removal down there.  Yes a lot of mine is gone, and yes I might regret that choice, but I simply couldn't continue to deal with the pain from LHR and I shudder at what electrolysis might have felt like down there.
  
  I'm the first to admit that I don't have a whole lot of dysphoria at all, much less about what "equipment" I currently have.  That being said, I definitely understand where the question comes from.  For me, it was actually more stressful broaching the subject with my LHR tech than it has been actually having the process done.  But even with that being the case I won't say it doesn't bother me at least a little to have the procedure done.  Now I realize I don't technically have to as many SRS surgeons don't require it, but the ones I've seriously looked at do recommend it; so I see this as something that needs to happen and while it is a touch uncomfortable for me, it's simply another check box to mark off so I deal with it.  Regardless of that my technician is wonderful, and frankly I'm pretty sure she's seen it all.  I can't/won't tell anyone else how to handle their business, but I will say that sometimes we simply have to do things that we may not like in order to accomplish what we want and I see this as one of those things.  If you really and truly cannot bring yourself to have LHR or electrolysis down there, then perhaps you can opt for a surgeon who doesn't need/want that done; but if your surgeon does recommend or require it, then - well it is what it is.

• Can I do this at home?
  
  I've seen people ask this and perhaps they can, but I don't see how you could do it on yourself very well, but that's simply *my opinion*.  I'm not sure I'd chance it though as everything I've read says that you can scar easily from electrolysis if it's not done right so is it really worth the chance of that?  It wasn't for me, but each of us has to make our own decisions, so if you feel it is, please be careful.

As always dissenting viewpoints are welcome; I realize that this topic lends itself to that even more than most of my posts.  Either way these are my thoughts and experiences when it comes to electrolysis and in some areas how I feel it contrasts to LHR.  As always thanks for reading.

I do have one more thing to say.  As you can tell if you visit here much, I haven't posted in months (I think it's nearly 8 months now).  There are many reasons for that and one of them almost led me to take down the blog.  I'm not going to do that as it does still get enough visits I think it might be helpful to some.  However, it's not going to be overly active going forward.  I'll still post certain things here, but my intention is to start another blog here that focuses more on things I enjoy.  That would be be mainly cooking, our pets, and probably some reviews on things and businesses; with a little bit of other things sprinkled in from time to time such as something I might have read or a game that I'm enjoying, and so on.  That was really what I had originally intended when I first decided to start a blog; it just happened that my transition started about the same time and it was easy to write about that and I hoped I could share some things that might help others or at least be found useful.  But for the most part that has ran it's course, though I'll still post here from time to time.  Thanks to those of you who have read this over the years and hopefully you'll pop in from time to time to either see what I have posted here or perhaps to read the new (as of yet un-named) blog that I'll be working on shortly.

- M

Hello 2016....

Somehow I let the entire month of January 2016 go by without an entry here.  It's not for lack of things to write about as I have a half dozen posts in various states of completion.  It's more of a motivation thing I suspect as most of those posts are transition related topics and I find it hard to motivate myself to write about those things these days.  I really need to start writing about other things as I said I was going to do in my prior post.  I still do intend on finishing those half dozen posts that I've started as I do think they are all good topics, but for now I thought I'd knock something out that I could do relatively quickly since it's late and I have to work in the morning.  So with my self-imposed requirement of keeping the topic simple I decided to basically summarize the first month of 2016 for posterity's sake.

From a local perspective the year is off to a rough start.  We had the flooding from the huge rains at the end of 2015 which led to too many lost lives and lots of damage to property.  Then of course there was the relocation of the Saint Louis Rams back to Los Angeles.  Frankly, I had become ambivalent on the subject of them staying or going; but I was disappointed to see all of the hard work done to try and keep the team here go for naught.  Look, if Enos Stanley Kroenke was dead set on moving to Los Angeles, well I may not like it, but it was his team.  But to let the city of Saint Louis and the state of Missouri invest the time and money they did to try and build a new stadium when there was absolutely no intention of even considering keeping the team here - well that's wrong.  Normally I might say that karma would catch up to Mr. Kroenke, but when you have the kind of money that he and his wife have - well I don't think that's a concern.  I do feel sorry for those that are losing their jobs over this and for those that might have obtained jobs building a new stadium.

As far as the family goes, I love J more and more each day.  She's still up for promotion.  She didn't get an interview for the first position she put in for; but she put in for a second one and she did get an interview - in fact two - and is waiting to hear about it which we should this week.  From a selfish perspective I'd love for her to get it as it would cut her commute from 25 miles and 40 minutes via back roads that worry me, to 10 miles and 10 minutes via a major highway and a major artery.  That's an extra hour per work day that she'd have at home.  Plus the schedule would be an improvement at least initially since she'd be going back to overnights.  But really it doesn't matter.  If she gets it then great.  If she doesn't then that's fine too.  She's happy where she's at and she can sit back and wait for the "right opportunity" now that she's been through the process and has an understanding of how things will work.  Everyone else is pretty much as they always are.  I'd like us to be more of a "family" in 2016; though I'm not sure that's going to happen.  But regardless I still am happy with my "chosen family" and would pick them every day of the week over my "birth family".

From a more personal perspective the year got off on a bit of a sour note.  I had been really sick for several days and was starting to get concerned as some of the symptoms I had were similar to those i had back in 2014 when I ended up in the hospital.  As it was, my local Doctor couldn't work me in for nearly 3 weeks (what's up with that?), so 3+ hours in urgent care, followed by 4+ hours in the ER, which ended up in a diagnosis of severe dehydration.  I shudder to think what the blood work and two bags of saline are going to cost.  Speaking of that, I was incredibly disappointed in the entire St. Luke's system over this.  I've written about them before in glowing terms, but the whole process from the Doctor's office to the urgent care to the ER had issues.  I'll probably write about that experience later this week.  I did have one moment of levity in the process.  During my intake at the ER I was asked if I knew when my last "period" was.  Perhaps she was being polite, but in reality I really did feel like I was blending in well that night and all joking aside it made me feel a bit better at the time.  Other things are going better, the electrolysis continues.  She's making great progress on the remaining facial hair, though it continues to be a painful experience.  I have decided to cease the laser completely on both my face and pelvic region.  The former since there's not enough dark hairs left to justify the cost/time, and the latter due to both the fact that surgery is a good ways off and truthfully I don't think it was really getting the hair that it needed to get.  When/if surgery is on the horizon I may have to revisit this depending on the surgeon; but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I think I'll wrap up with some random thoughts about this and that.

Movies

I saw Spectre finally.  Of the Craig movies I'd put it on par with Skyfall.  I find Casino Royale to be his best and Quantum of Solace to be the worst of the bunch.  Many would disagree with me, but I wasn't as impressed with Skyfall as many were.  As far as the status of things in the Bond universe, I think Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw as Moneypenny and Q respectively are pretty good.  I'm disappointed in the fact that Judy Dench was killed off in Skyfall, though I suppose they had to move on.  I think that Christoph Waltz was under-utilized in Spectre and do hope he returns as is reported; though apparently that hinges on Daniel Craig coming back.  Speaking of Mr. Craig, I was upset when he replaced Pierce Brosnan, but he's been very good as Bond and when he does leave the series I only hope that his replacement can pull off the transition as well as he has.

I re-watched Straight Out Of Compton the other day.  J, M, and I had actually caught this in the theater one evening after a trip to Columbia to see my Doctor and I felt it was quite good.  I was disappointed to see it not garner more Oscar attention as I think it deserved it.  I was never really into NWA when they were around, but after seeing the movie I've developed an appreciation for them as well as their solo careers.

Some other movies that entertained me over the last few months would be Minions, the Vacation remake (obviously not as good as the original, but still it had it's moments), as well as The Martian which was surprisingly good.  As far as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I enjoyed Ant Man; but the second Avengers movie - well not so much.  I think that movie tried to do too much and it suffered because of it.  Hopefully they'll get back on track with the next Captain America movie; though I'm a bit worried as from the trailers I've seen they are packing a lot of characters into it so it may end up being "Avengers Light" and if so I'll probably be a touch disappointed in that.

Food and Cooking

I still find that almost any recipe from Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) tends to be good.  I may not like everything she makes, but for the most part all of what she makes is reasonably simple and I think she does a good job demonstrating things.  She's not for everyone, but I like her.  Other recipes have been hit or miss.  From a food perspective, I've been trying to cook healthier and when we go out eat healthier.  J and even M have really broadened my horizons when it comes to that.  One place I've developed an appreciation for is HuHot Mongolian Grill.  It's not exactly gourmet food, but for what it is I (and J/M) like it a lot.

Television

I don't watch a lot of new shows, I've been burned by getting hooked on shows that end up cancelled.  For example I got into Burn Notice and White Collar towards the end of their runs.  I still watch the reruns when they are on or via Netflix even though I've seen the entire series.  I also worked my way through Leverage which was very good up until the last season.  As far as current shows, I really do enjoy Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter.  I've always been a fan of Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson character and Hayley Atwell is great as Agent Peggy Carter.  Of course I'm still a fan of Orange Is The New Black and House Of Cards and am looking forward to the new seasons of each.

Well it's now well after 2am and I need to wrap this up.  I know this wasn't a very informative post - but it's good to write about things like this every so often so I can look back on my thoughts at a later date.  So with that I bid you all a good night.

- M