Question
hello i am going in for my second treatment tomorrow on 12-21...i am going with a Sciton Yag nd laser (i believe that is how it is spelled) and am getting it done on my head (i shave my head daily and dont want to shave anymore) and i got a little gone after my first with an IPL....they used a 23 on the IPL...i dont know if that was J or not....*joules* ...but i was wondering what to have her put it on (since she is new to doing it on the scalp) and will the scalp need more joules since there is more hair per area or would that mean it will hurt even more since there is more hair?
i guess i need it as high as i can stand it right?
anyone out there have an idea?

Answer
hello i am going in for my second treatment tomorrow on 12-21...i am going with a Sciton Yag nd laser (i believe that is how it is spelled) and am getting it done on my head (i shave my head daily and dont want to shave anymore) and i got a little gone after my first with an IPL....they used a 23 on the IPL...i dont know if that was J or not....*joules* ...but i was wondering what to have her put it on (since she is new to doing it on the scalp) and will the scalp need more joules since there is more hair per area or would that mean it will hurt even more since there is more hair?
i guess i need it as high as i can stand it right?
anyone out there have an idea?

Answer
with any laser, the higher the power, the better chance of killing the hair. so highest without burning the skin. check the hair-tell forum. someone on there has had treatments with Sciton and can advise you on specific settings on this laser.

Answer
thanks for the help!

Answer
Scalp hair follicles are the deepest in the body. This requires a large spot size. The energy used depends on your skin and the hair type, rather than the number of hairs. However, the more dense the hair, the more you will feel the laser's energy.

Answer
can you explain the term large spot size.....and how this relates to deep hair follicles...please?
thanks
d

Answer
Some lasers have only one spot size, such as the LightSheer has a 9mm spot size. Some lasers, such as GentleLase have multiple spot sizes, up to 18 mm on the GL+. The larger the spot size, the deeper the laser penetrates.

Answer
spot size is the size of the end of the laser hand piece, so it measures the area you are treating with each pulse. GentleLASE has several hand pieces that vary from 10mm to 20 mm or so.

Answer
i am being treated with a sciton yag laser and dont know the spot size...also, it seems counter-intuitive that the larger the spot size the deeper it penetrates....seems like that would cause the laser to be more superficial and decreasing the spot size would allow the laser to concentrate energy to a smaller and deeper spot/area on the body...obviously i am wrong, but looking for a physical explanation..
thanks
d

Answer
As the laser beam penetrates the skin, think of the beam as an inverted pyramid. Wide at the top, tapering to a narrow point. The wider it is at the top (larger spot size) the larger the "pyramid" will be, thus the deeper it penetrates. Small spot sizes=smaller "pyramid"=shallow penetration for shallow, fine hairs.
I believe the Sciton laser uses a scanner. This would make it a large spot size. In the past, I read that scanning lasers lose or waste a lot of the energy and were not very effective, I don't know if the Sciton improved the scanning method or not.

Answer
someone on the other forum has had good things to say about sciton after they tried it. the scanning technology seems good on it from what i've read from their experience.

Answer
both! i appreciate the wealth of knowledge that you two possess and now the spot size makes sense...i just got done with my 2nd treatment....1st with the IPL and it knocked out the hair on my temporal region and along the back of the ear (posterior auricular area)....the 2nd treatment with sciton YAG laser and was on around 30-38 J for my scalp...not as painful as the IPL which was @ about 23 J, i believe....it was very painful...no fallout yet..but we shall see within the next few days/
thanks agian and happy new years!