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Transfem @lemmy.blahaj.zone
Amy @lemmy.sdf.org

Question for those who've done hair removal for PIV surgery

Did you get rid of the vellus (fine, downy) hairs as well? I realize the correct answer is "ask your surgeon", but...

The best I can find is that it probably doesn't matter, but since they have the potential to develop into a problem down the road I'm leaning towards better safe than sorry. My electrolysist (electrolygist?) wasn't sure. Hence The straw poll.

Thanks!

5 comments

  • no, the only hair removed is terminal hair, that's both in the preparatory phase (laser and electrolysis) and during the surgery when follicular scraping is done.

    You should talk to your surgeon about what they do specifically, my surgeon confirmed they don't remove vellus hair, only terminal hairs - each hair is cauterized and removed from the skin graft, my surgeon said they usually have enough time to get around 50 hairs.

    Vellus hairs aren't typically removed and are generally ignored, the concern is whether there is terminal hair. Your concern should be on getting electrolysis to fully clear the skin graft for several iterations of hair growth cycles.

    Ideally you would have a whole year of electrolysis during which time full clearance is maintained, so that the following year the remaining electrolysis is only cleaning up the regrowth hairs.

    That said, I did have PIV under a much shorter timeline with only five months of electrolysis (one hour a week), with only a couple laser sessions before starting the electrolysis.

    If you can, don't rush it like I did πŸ˜… I think the stats were one in seven women end up with hair in their vagina, usually from regrowth due to not enough electrolysis beforehand.

    • Ah, that's good to know.

      I'm still a while away from even an initial consult, so probably at least a year to go still. But we've pretty much finished the first pass already, just a case of picking up any dormant hairs now. Guess there's time to start tackling the remaining hair on my face as well then (^^

  • My surgeon did follicle removal during the surgery from the underside of the skin. The goal of hair removal wasn't perfection, but just to reduce the amount of time he had to spend on hair removal during surgery.

    That being said, I understand not all surgeons do the same...