When to Say “No” to Cosmetic Treatments

It can be hard to say no to a medical provider when they suggest a treatment that you aren’t sure about. But taking the time to understand your options and the risks is vitally important! Especially is you have ethnic skin!

Post treatment pigmentation – are you at risk?

We recently had a young woman come to our office asking for help after a highly problematic outcome of what was basically a “botched” job of laser hair removal.

She had severe hyperpigmentation AND hypopigmentation (loss of pigment).

The reason? Her ethnic skin was treated with a laser that was completely inappropriate for her skin coloring and pigmentation levels. It will take many months to blend the hyperpigmentation and the loss of pigment is largely irreversible.

When do you say “No”?

• When you have ethnic skin and no one asks you about your genetic background before recommending any type of laser treatment – hair removal or otherwise
• When the practice claims they have a single laser that treats everyone and every type of skin
• When the practice can’t show you any results they’ve accomplished with their own patients (not just the company models)
• When the doctor is missing board certification. Although there are many physicians who treat outside their specialty, personality and familiarity are not the best reasons to choose your OBGYN or family doc to do your fillers or lasers. They “can” be proficient, but that is not always the case.

We’ll be working with the unfortunate young woman for many months to help her skin return to a more normal coloring, but chances are slight that she will ever have the smooth skin tone she had before those incorrectly chosen hair laser treatments.

About hair laser treatments