Episode #112: Relief from Pesky PCOS Symptoms: Practical Solutions

3:09.7 – 21:02.3 Episode #23: PCOS & Hair loss

A widespread concern of PCOS is hair loss. When I was working in dermatology, a large portion of my patients would come in for hair loss due to hormone imbalances. And today that’s exactly what we are going to be talking about in this episode the cause of PCOS hair loss and what you can do about it. So if you’ve been dealing with PCOS hair loss, you’re definitely going to want to listen to this episode because even if you just have PCOS and haven’t seen hair loss yet, we want to stop it before it begins to develop. Because hair loss is so much easier to prevent or treat in its early stages than it is to try to regrow hair that has been lost and is noticeably thinning, it can also be very expensive without yielding a lot of results. We’re going to talk about those treatments as well, what to try, and what to avoid. But there is a ton of hope and that is what this episode is all about. So let’s go ahead and dive in and get started.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in. Hi. I’m Ashley and Cortez. And with many years of medical and personal experience with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their bodies in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast, where today we’re going to be talking about all things PCOS and hair loss. This is an extremely important topic because it’s very difficult to reverse hair loss and regrow hair that has thinned. So the best approach is to slow down the loss of hair as soon as possible, as well as to prevent it from starting in the first place. So first, what are we looking at when we’re seeing hair loss? Okay, so it is normal to lose hair every day. So if you’re losing a little hair in the shower or on your hairbrush, that is normal. So don’t panic, first of all. So, okay, there’s that. That’s completely normal. What we want to watch out for is if you start to feel like your ponytail is thinning, like you don’t have as much hair when you go to put your hair in a ponytail, we don’t want to see any thinness in the temples or kind of a receiving hairline, and we definitely don’t want to be starting to see thinning on the top of the head. Maybe when you part your hair, that part is starting to look thinner and you’re starting to see more skin through the hair.

That’s going to be our first sign usually that something’s going on, you may start to notice larger amounts of hair loss in the shower or on your hairbrush. And mostly what you’re going to want to pay attention to is tapping into where you feel in your health. If you feel out of balance, if you feel like you have high levels of inflammation or your body is not responding the way you want it to, you’re not having regular cycles that are going to all probably show up faster than hair loss. But if your hormones are out of balance, hair loss is a concern. So the first thing we want to do is always focus on balancing our hormones. And in order to do that, the first thing we want to know is what hormone is involved in the loss of hair. What hormones is it that we need to balance? So this is going to be your androgens, and in particular, one of the primary androgens is going to be your testosterone. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. And what we want to do is think about, okay, what’s going on at the root of the problem down further in our metabolic hormones.

That’s where we want to actually take a natural approach to balance our hormones to reduce her loss as well as our other PCOS symptom. So the deeper root problem hormones are going to be things like an insulin effect, inflammation, stress response with cortisol, and keep in mind that these all play together so they can feed off of each other. And so when you take the PCOS Root cause quiz, which I recommend that you do, I’ll link to it in the show notes below. You’re going to start to pick out which symptoms are pointing to which root cause and where you may want to focus your attention to address certain imbalances and therefore symptoms. I know I’ve mentioned this before in many other episodes of the PCOS Repair podcast, but it bears mentioning again because I think it is something that most people have a misconception about, and that is the elevated exposure to insulin. Elevated insulin is not going to show up on labs, but it is going to be creating increased PCOS symptoms. It’s going to be affecting your PCOS at the root cause, and it can be occurring long before you have insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is what your doctor is testing for, for elevated insulin levels, and abnormal blood sugars. But the problem is that we start to see the symptoms long before our bodies begin to actually give in to the constant overuse to become insulin resistant. In other words, because most women seeking information and assistance with PCOS fall into the 20 to 40-year-old age range, this is young. Most of these women are not going to have had elevated insulin or an insulin effect, which is why I call it that. They haven’t had that long enough to really develop insulin resistance. So your body starts to resist insulin, so your pancreas is having to pump out more insulin to get a response, and your pancreas at some point starts to wear out, and that’s when you start going from insulin resistance to diabetes. But this is a full spectrum, and so many women are still early enough in the spectrum that they have not progressed to insulin resistance. PCOS, your root cause hormones, they don’t know where you’re at in that spectrum. They just know that there’s more insulin than needed in the system and it’s telling your ovaries to produce more.

Androgens and so when there are high levels of insulin in your bloodstream, whether it’s because you eat a lot of things that stimulate insulin response or your body is slow to take up food, so there’s more insulin than needed, whatever the reason, you have more insulin circulating in your bloodstream, it’s going to tell your ovaries produce more androgens and your symptoms of PCOS will be worse. And then there’s inflammation, stress, and there’s also going to be just imbalanced hormones from a nutritional standpoint and other lifestyle factors that may be from coming off of birth control or sleep or other lifestyle factors that can come into play that can elevate insulin besides just dietary needs. So that then leads us to the questions. Okay, so once you know what’s going on, how do you balance your PCOS and testosterone naturally? So we’ve talked about that in some of the other episodes. The first thing you want to do is take the PCOS root cause quiz and then go and listen to episodes three and four and they’ll talk more about the root cause and adopting a natural healing lifestyle in order to help balance your PCOS hormones.

But in this episode, in regards to PCOS hair loss, what I want to remind you is when it comes to treatment measures, there are medications which are talked about in a minute. There are some natural, more holistic, over-the-counter things that people talk about and we’ll talk about those in a minute in some detail. But the biggest thing is all of those are going to have their side effect profiles. They are also going to be very expensive and they’re going to have a very difficult time making any sort of progress if the underlying hormone imbalance is not addressed first or alongside. You do not have to wait until your hormones are balanced to start some of these treatments. But I’m going to tell you that most people are not very satisfied with these options of regrowing hair or helping to decrease the loss of hair if they’re not also combining them with the lifestyle approach. Okay, so first of all, from a prescription standpoint, there is going to be Aldactone or spironolactone. Now, this is an androgen blocker. So if you have too high androgens this helps to decrease their effect on your body.

So you can kind of tell just from that description that it’s not addressing the root cause. It is simply trying to kind of stop up the dam, if you will, and not let the androgens through. And so it’s decreasing. It can decrease female hormonal acne. It can improve hair growth. It works better on acne than hair growth. But if I had a patient that had issues with both, that’s definitely something we would consider it’s a prescription medication. Most women who took it did really, really well, but some people really struggle with it. The side effects are kind of strange. They show up differently for different people. They can feel kind of weak or fatigued. They can feel kind of like their hearts racing. They can have some dizziness, or they don’t even feel like they’re taking anything. So it’s not for everybody. But it’s definitely worth talking to your doctor about if you want to take a prescription medication. Again, it works okay for reducing hair growth, and it’s not going to override or get to the root of the problem. You’re going to have to do that with lifestyle changes. The next option, of course, is that metformin may help to reduce the insulin response and may help to make your body more insulin sensitive.

But keep in mind, if you eat food that creates a high spike in insulin, you still have insulin circulating in your body. Metformin does not get rid of that. It just makes your body more responsive to the insulin that you give. So at least you’re not pumping extra to be heard. So think of it this way. If you’re having a hard time in a crowd to be heard, and so you’re having to yell at the top of your voice, that’s kind of insulin resistance. It’s having to yell to get the body’s attention, to open up the cells, and let the blood sugar in. If you’re taking something like metformin, what metformin is doing, it’s like giving you a microphone so that you can talk in a normal conversational voice and no longer have to yell, but still, be amplified. So you’re no longer having to exert that extra energy or the extra amount of insulin to be heard at the level that you want to be heard. So with that in mind, and again, follow this analogy through a little bit, if you’re eating something that has a high sugar content, you’re still going to flood the body with a high magnitude of insulin.

Now, if you’re taking metformin, it’s not going to make that magnitude of insulin even higher to be heard, like allowing your body to hear you easier, but it still is going to have a high magnitude of insulin. So even if you’re taking metformin, the lifestyle changes and adjustments, especially in your diet, are still going to be very important. I hope that makes sense. So the next one you can do with an over-the-counter option, and that is Rogan, which is a minoxidil solution. So in my dermatology office, we always recommended that you use the male strength because, again, it’s very difficult to regrow hair and so a little stronger preparation was a better choice. Do keep in mind that Rogaine or Minoxidil, can increase your chance of growing hair elsewhere on the body, and increase hair growth on the face. And that is something that women with PCOS are already prone to. So there is that side effect. What I always talk to patients about is that that is something that was easier to deal with and remove rather and there weren’t really a lot of other options other than hair transplants and stuff to regrow hair.

The other thing that’s really important to recognize with Rogan or Minoxidil is that this one tends to lose any benefits that you got from it. In other words, if you start using it, you start to see your hair thicken. If you stop using it, it will reverse back. Now, you’re not losing more hair, but it’s like you lost any improvements that you gained over that period of time. And if it was worsening in your hormone imbalance, it’s going to show that at that point because you’re basically just lengthening the hair cycle and so you’re keeping the hair follicles longer. But if there’s still an issue with your hormones, they’re still going to just you to lose your hair once you stop taking the Minoxidil or the Rogue. So then think about other ads you may have seen and other recommendations. You may have seen things like biotin hair and nail supplements, and topical solutions for thicker hair. One that I have seen a lot of and I have talked to people who have had excellent results with is one called Vegamore. Then there’s also biotin hair and nails. Here’s the thing with biotin. Biotin is a vitamin.

And so if you are vitamin deficient.

Then by all means it may help you. But it’s not really an additional medication for hair loss. It’s just a vitamin that your body needs for hair and nails. So it is marketed as if you take this vitamin, you’re going to have healthier and stronger nails. But the reality is that if you have enough of that vitamin already, then you do not need to take more of it. So if you’ve recently had lab panels that show your vitamin levels, then you know you’re good. Then you don’t need to take it. You could try taking it for a little while and see if you see an improvement. But it’s not like a magic pill that’s going to help your hair and nails grow. It’s just making sure you have the nutrients that your body needs. It’s not a magic pill that’s going to magically regrow your hair and make your nails stronger. It is simply a vitamin that if you are deficient, could be beneficial to help your body have the nutrients it needs to have healthy and thick care. Now, other over-the-counter solutions, and possible remedies. Here’s the thing with them. They’re not studied.

There’s not a lot of research to back them up. Most of the case studies and quotes, research that appears to be out there, is done by the companies that manufacture the product or sell the product. So there is some agenda to write these studies and show these case studies in the best possible light. However, if the ingredients are clean and you don’t have any sort of reaction to them, there’s no harm in researching them and trying ones that you feel good about or that you’ve been recommended. I think it’s important to understand the timeline of things and then as you make your decisions of what you want to try or don’t want to try, do it with the knowledge that you really want to make sure that you’re at least focusing on the lifestyle approach so that you’re not completely wasting your money. A lot of these supplements and over-the-counter miracle cures for hair growth, most of them don’t work amazingly for women with PCOS to regrow hair if they do, but some of them will find amazing results with it. And so are they worth trying? Probably. But keep in mind that probably most of them are being hyped up by marketing.

So get a recommendation from someone that you trust, someone who has tried it, that you can see regrowth, or something that’s from a company that you trust. But just be aware, a lot of those are very expensive and can yield rather disappointing results. One example that I have seen in clinical practice is PRP injections. So this is something that’s going to be done by a physician. So it’s definitely an over-the-counter natural approach, it’s not unnatural. And that all they’re doing is they do a blood draw and then they spin down your plasma-rich protein. There are no stem cells in this. Anyone who calls this a stem cell treatment is actually incorrect. That is something a little bit different, but it is plasma-rich protein and then they spin that down, they draw that up in a syringe, and inject it in the areas of decreased hair. So I have done this on patients in the past and I have spoken with the reps of the company and seen different pictures and some people do have really good results with this. What I did notice with the patients that I treated is that their hair had a lot more volume and I think there were a lot more small follicles beginning to sprout as well.

But the timeline of hair regrowth is a very difficult thing to track because it grows rather slowly as well as hair that’s going to fall out. It may still be there, but it’s already on the trajectory to fall out. And so to really see hair start to regrow and to stabilize in a larger volume of hair can take several months to a year to really see if there’s any improvement. And there’s not going to be a great deal of hair at that point. So you’re going to kind of look at the roots and it will start to look like there’s more volume because there are little short hairs mixed in that are helping to give more volume. Also, both, my patient and her hairdresser thought that her hair definitely looked more lustrous and it just looked happier and healthier and it looked thicker. But when you look at the before and afters, it wasn’t dramatic and it was several hundred dollars of treatment and she went through two different rounds of groupings of three, three treatments at a time. And then we kind of waited to see over three to six months. We saw a little bit of improvement so she did a second round.

Another one that I have heard good things about, which I personally have not tried is vegamore. I think the ingredients are fairly straightforward as far as personal care products, I think that they are about as good as you can get. I think that one though is again, it’s about $150 and I’m not quite sure how long that bottle is going to last you. If you choose to go that route where you’re trying something like that, where you’re putting a solution on your hair to improve hair growth, you’re going to want to follow the directions exactly. Don’t be like me when you try to skimp and not put as much. So it’s going to last you three months instead of one month because then it’s probably not going to work. Use it as they recommend and then three, give it enough time. Like if you’re going to commit to that, give it enough time to really see results. And with her regrowth, that’s going to be a minimum of three. I would recommend six months, if not longer. So keep that in mind anytime you’re thinking about trying something new for your hair. And then just so you know what is or isn’t working, I recommend only trying one new thing at a time.

And the most important thing again is going to be working towards hormone balancing in your lifestyle. And that’s going to come through getting proper movement in your week. It’s going to be through eating foods that are not spiking your insulin, that is reducing your inflammation instead of contributing to your inflammation and managing your stress levels, and caring for your emotional well-being and your environmental bubble of what’s allowed into your day-to-day. So there you have it, my friend. I really want to make sure that this information was available to you because I see so many people struggling with hair loss and asking questions about hair loss and so many times we chase the medications, the supplements, I must not be putting the right thing on it. And we don’t first address the root cause. And it’s so important to start healing and reversing this early on so that we’re not dealing with a much harder-to-treat situation with thinning hair. So if you found this episode helpful, please be sure to subscribe to your favorite listening platform so that you are notified each week when the next topic of PCOS Health becomes available.

And if you have any questions about the information in this episode as well as any of the other episodes of the PCOS Repair podcast, please head on over to Instagram and leave me a comment or DM me at nourish to Healthy and I would be happy to continue this conversation or answer any follow-up questions over there on Instagram. And until next time, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started. My PCs Fertility Meal Guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

21:05 – 52:00 Episode #27: PCOS and Laser Hair Removal

Elevated androgens, in particular, testosterone frequently seen with PCOS can lead to something called here’s A, which is where you have excess hair growth, primarily on the face, neck, upper lip, and chin, but it can include the full body. Women with PCOS often find that they have thick, long, coarse hair around the chest, and toes, and definitely more prone to hairier legs, hairy under, arms, as well as even the lower abdomen. It can be really frustrating to keep these areas trimmed, waxed, shaved, or otherwise manicured. So in this episode, we are going to talk all about laser hair removal, but I’ll also touch on other options for removing unwanted hair from the body so that you can have smooth, stubble-free skin whenever you want it.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in.

Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek.

And with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their bodies in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast, where today we are going to be talking about having hair-free, smooth skin and all the considerations that you want to make and have in the back of your mind when you’re considering laser hair removal. So let’s go ahead and get started by talking about some of the other ways that you could remove hair. Because when it comes to PCOS, not all areas of the body need to be treated the same way, both for budgetary reasons as well for various types of hair, and amounts of hair, like the surface area of the body that needs to be treated for certain sections. So it’s good to have a good idea of all the different options that you have for removing unwanted hair. And I know this episode seems to be airing at a weird time if you think about it because most of us want to be more hair free in the summer. But when it comes to laser hair removal right now, which this episode will be airing in midfall, right now is the time to make your consult and get your treatment started because it takes about five treatments to get the results that you want, as well as you may need some touchups.

And every treatment is about every four to six weeks, so it takes a little while to get to where you want to be. So if you’re considering laser hair removal, this is the time of year to do it. Plus it’s usually easier to get in for an appointment because a lot of people scramble at the last minute thinking about it more mid-spring. And so now is the time to get a jump on that. All right, so let’s first start talking about removing unwanted hair by shaving. So shaving, of course, is a great option for the larger surface areas of the body, such as the legs. It’s inexpensive, it’s easy, and available because you can do it yourself in the comfort of your own home. And so for this reason, shaving is a really good option, especially for places where in a pinch, you don’t really mind that it has a little bit of hair on it, because you can always cover it with clothing, like putting your jeans on for the day. If you’re like me. And you have really thick, coarse hair that goes all the way up your legs, which is very common with PCOS, and it tends to grow back really quickly.

This makes shaving the most tedious of all the hair removal options in that it has to be kept up very regularly. I have had so many of my body areas treated with laser hair removal, and we’ll get to that, but I remember prior to having laser treatments, I felt like my ankles had a 05:00 shadow, which was really annoying if I had anywhere that I was going in the evening, like an evening event. And so for me, laser hair removal was such a life-changing event. Then. Also, when it comes to shaving, I’ve had so many patients ask me about this, and I just want to say it is a myth that has been propagated by I don’t know who. But when it comes to shaving, it does not cause hair to grow back thicker. Can I say that again? Shaving does not cause your hair to get thicker. It is not affecting the root, it is not changing your hair follicle. But it can have that illusion for a couple of reasons, and I think this is why that myth has gotten started. One is when we start to shave something other than our legs.

So our legs were usually probably pretty hairy to start with, but this is really something where people will start to shave their mustache and then they feel like their mustache came in darker. So typically the reason people will start shaving their mustache is that they noticed more hair growth. But why did we ask that question? And we always have to ask that question. Why? Why am I seeing darker hair on my upper lip? So for women with PCOS, the answer is probably that you’ve had hormone imbalance long enough that you’re starting to see some of the results of it, and you’re just getting started with that. And so if you start shaving it, it’s continuing to worsen. And it has nothing to do with you shaving it. It has to do with hormone imbalance. So until you get the hormones balanced, you’re going to continue to see the problem worsening, shaving or not shaving. The other thing is that when you have long, unshaven hair. The end is tapered and finer as well as it tends to get bleached out and lighter at the tip. When you shave that hair and it starts to grow, you see a very dark section that is close to the root, sticking up very prominently and bluntly cut, so it is as visible as visible can be.

And so it can look like it came in a lot darker. But if you think about like growing hair, it’s a little bit like an elongated teardrop. And so the end is a lot finer, which is kind of what we see because it’s at the end, it’s what’s sticking up as compared to the root, which is a lot thicker and darker. So it has nothing to do with the shaving. It has everything to do with either the hormone imbalances of continuing to increase hair to a certain area that you may not want hair as well as when you shave it does exaggerate the appearance of the hair, which is why you may need to continue shaving. Or if that’s coming back too quickly, as discussed prior, you may want to move on to other options, which we’ll talk about next. Next up, waxing. So this can be done either at home or at a salon. And the benefit is that the results last longer. The reason is, is because you’re pulling it out by the root of the hair. Having the results last longer can be really helpful if you’re trying to remove hair between the eyebrows or the bikini line because you’re not going to get as much stubble, which can become very irritated or have all of those little red bumps.

And so you’re going to have more time with a smooth appearance rather than having some irritation. You can still get some irritation right at the beginning, but at least you’re going to have a period of time, a series of days in between treatments, where you have hair-free, smooth skin as compared to always having little stubble and a 05:00 shadow appearance. Now, some people are very sensitive to waxing and so that is not the case. But it is something that some people can get away with without as much irritation and they have that nice smooth skin for longer with waxing. The downside is that it can be very uncomfortable, especially depending on the size or area of the body that you’re having waxed. Plus, it’s a lot more expensive than shaving and it’s not permanent. So you’re spending a lot more time and energy on it. Even if it’s not quite as frequent that you’re having to do it, you’re still spending a fair amount of time having to make an appointment, go to an appointment, have a treatment, and then it still grows back plus a lot of extra money. So it can be great for certain areas, but again, it’s not permanent.

Another similar option to waxing is something called sugar. It’s a very similar procedure, but some people find that it’s less irritating, as if you have sensitive skin to waxing. It may be something that you want to ask about at your local salons if they do sugaring instead of waxing. Unlike shaving, waxing can alter hair growth because, in this instance, you are actually pulling out the root of the hair. So for this reason, you may want to keep an eye on what’s happening in the areas that you’re frequently waxing or repeatedly waxing, although I would expect a decrease over time, you just want to keep an eye on it. And this is especially maybe a concern in areas like the eyebrows where you’re shaping them with waxing, you also don’t want to overthink them. And so unless they’re being careful to go in the same place every time, you may over time start to get kind of over-tweezed or in this case, overwax eyebrows. So then, similar to waxing you’re removing the hair root is plucking. Well, this is clearly not a good option for larger body areas like the legs. It can be a great option for the random stray hair on the chin or between the brows and it’s something that, again, you can easily and inexpensively do at home.

Then there are chemical ways of removing unwanted hair and these would include products such as Nare or other similar brands. Now, these ones I do not recommend these ones. The reason is that many people have come to my office with chemical reactions and even burns from these. I have used them myself. And while it is very tempting to do because of the low cost, you can use them at home in the comfort of your own home and they have a very similar result and lasting time to waxing. But I just don’t like them. There are a lot of reasons, but one of them is just they can cause irritation, reaction, allergic reaction, burns, et cetera. Plus they smell horrid. And to get that smell off of your skin, you oftentimes have to use a lot of other scented soaps and to the number of toxic chemicals that you’re putting all over your body over and over to remove your hair, it starts to kind of concern me a little bit. Plus it’s just there are so many other options and I also found that when I did it, some of the hairs were removed extremely well, but there were always just like these little patches and it was just kind of fussy.

And again, I don’t like toxic chemicals, so I don’t recommend that one, but it is an option. So those are some of the very common ways of removing unwanted hair. Now, I know there are always new methods coming available, being introduced to the market, and being advertised. The new ways may or may not be helpful, but these are some of the long-tested mainstream ones that a lot of people are familiar with and may have tried or been interested in trying. So I wanted to at least touch on all of those before we talk about laser hair removal. So in regards to a more permanent hair removal option, there is either laser hair removal or electrolysis. And I get asked a lot about what is the difference between the two. So both of them are permanent, but the FDA says that electrolysis is a permanent removal of hair and that laser hair removal is a permanent reduction. The biggest difference is that as you’re going over the body with laser hair removal is less precise, whereas, with electrolysis, you’re literally grabbing and treating each individual hair, so it tends to be more precise. I think the numbers meet the criteria for permanent removal versus permanent reduction.

In the end result, they’re both doing the same thing. They’re both sending in a little electric current down and killing the hair at the root. But some lasers do a better job of it than others. So that’s one thing. And so you want to check and see which lasers meet that criteria, but it’s also a little bit more random if every hair was treated. So you’re going to see more of a reduction as compared to full removal of the area. So kind of semantics there. They both work very similarly in their technology. The method of treatment is a little bit different, leading to, again, that different terminology of what the FDA claims or allows them to claim. However, the big caveat here you are a living person and your body can create new hair follicles, or your current hair follicles can thicken and darken in just the way that they did before due to unbalanced hormones. And so where a laser may have skipped over them because they weren’t as dark, they can over time, darken, and then they show up more. So if you only take away one thing from this episode is that your hormone balance, which we talk about a lot here on the PCOS Repair podcast, plays a big role in the worsening and ability to treat unwanted hair.

All on those lines, I cannot keep track of how many women I have diagnosed with PCOS because they came to me for laser hair removal. Well, I did eventually treat most of them. I recommended that they got their hormones tested first and if they did test positive for PCOS, then we would talk about lifestyle adjustments to get those hormones under better control so that they could get the long-term lasting results that they wanted from their laser hair removal treatment. If you go to a medspa or a plastic surgery office, or any reputable laser establishment, you may get excellent treatment. But if they don’t realize how important it is to be aware of someone who might have PCOS or see the warning signs of someone that has PCOS, then you may not get the long-lasting results that you were wanting. So my conversation with patients would go something like this. They would come in for a consultation for laser, usually for unwanted hair on the face or upper lip or chin and neck areas. And that just would just kind of that light bulb would go off, that maybe something was going on. Because most women don’t have excess hair in those areas, there are some nationalities that are prone to it.

But anytime I saw that on consultation, I at least would consider and make sure that I was not treating someone who had undiagnosed PCOS. Well, often times these women were perfect candidates as far as their hair color, the thickness of hair, and skin color. For laser hair removal, I would let them know that they were a good candidate, but I wanted to do some testing first. I would order them some lab work, I would have them follow up. We may even do a few test spots with the laser, but I would have them follow up before we started any real treatment and we would go over their lab results. If they showed any indication of PCOS. I would have them follow up with their primary care doctor or their gynecologist. Because I was in dermatology at the time and so I wasn’t going to treat the entirety of their PCOS. But I would let them know that. Look. This was something that we found and you’re going to want to get that more under control with lifestyle changes. So that your hormones are truly balanced and not just masked with the birth control pill. And then you’re going to be so much more satisfied with your treatments.

So the good news is that hair growth hirsutism is extremely responsive to lifestyle changes. Women who followed my recommendations not only did great with their laser results, but they also saw the long-lasting results that they wanted. So, yes, if you have PCOS, a laser will work on you. The problem is, is that after your five to eight treatments are done over the next year, you’re going to start to see hair return. And that’s, I think, one of the biggest reasons that there are mixed reviews on whether or not laser hair removal is helpful for women with PCOS. Women with PCOS are one of the largest groups of people that want laser hair removal for certain areas of the face and neck, but without your hormones being balanced, you’re not going to see it work long-term. And so here you were promised permanent reduction of hair and a year later, here it comes back. So that’s really important to note and hopefully, your provider is taking note of that and helping you with that prior to treating you for laser hair removal. But if they’re not, now you know what you need to do alongside or before you start any sort of laser hair removal treatment.

So what is the biggest difference between laser hair removal and electrolysis? So, as I said, they have very similar technology. But laser hair removal using a headpiece that treats zero, depending on the laser, about a one-inch square. And so that will cover somewhere in the like 20-ish, 30-ish hairs, depending on how thick and close together the hair follicles are in that area. Whereas electrolysis treats each individual hair one at a time, you actually grasp onto the hair follicle and then send the treatment down to the root of the hair. So, as you can see, electrolysis might be excellent for small areas of treatment, whereas laser hair removal can significantly speed up the process so that it can be used on larger surface areas such as the legs. The downside of laser hair removal is that you do need to carefully select hair color and skin color. The laser is recognizing darker pigmentation because you’re not actually grasping onto the hair. So the laser is looking for dark pigment, and that’s its target for treatment. For this reason, the best candidates are going to be lighter-skinned with darker, thicker hair.

And then, although there are many lasers that can treat different skin colors, it does have that limitation. Whereas for electrolysis, it really doesn’t matter what color the hair is or what color the skin tone is because you just grasp the hair and it just follows the hair shaft down to the hair root. And so you don’t have to worry about picking out that pigment contrast that you do with a laser hair removal device. So then we talked about whether or not they were permanent and kind of how the FDA words that and allows places toward that. And that comes back into play when you start thinking about where do you want to have your treatment performed. So the biggest consideration I would make is, what type of laser does the facility have? And then, of course, is your technician. Do they know what they’re doing? But if they don’t have a good instrument to start with, it really doesn’t matter how great of a technician they are. If they’re using a laser that’s not really that great at removing hair. It’s like two multipurpose. It does all sorts of other antiaging things as well. Then you’re just not going to get that good result.

And that’s where the FDA has only approved certain lasers to have a permanent reduction of hair. So what I highly recommend is to stay away from IPL lasers. These are typically used for all sorts of skin treatments, and yes, they actually do reduce hair. So I know this firsthand because one of the Pas I used to work with, he loved getting IPLs, but then he started noticing that his facial hair was thinning and it wasn’t permanent. It solely grew back over a couple of years. But it does thin the hair, and it didn’t come back in quite as thick as it had before. So it will thin hair, but you’re not going to have that, like, clean no hair, bare, smooth skin that you’re looking for. When you think about laser hair removal, it’s just going to give you a reduction of hair. And so the treatment of an IPL is going to be a little underwhelming. Even if you start to see improvement early on, overall, the lasting results of it just aren’t going to be as good. So because there are so many different lasers, I would just ask, when you make an appointment, what lasers do you have available for use of laser hair removal?

And then when you go in for your consultation, ask them what one they would recommend for you. Make sure you look those ones up. The manufacturer of the laser-like website they should put on there, whether or not it has been FDA-approved for permanent hair reduction, look into it, and make sure that it is one of the primary reasons that people use it is for laser hair removal. It’s not just like, oh, yeah, and it kind of works for laser hair removal too, because that’s where a lot of lasers are as these multi-purpose because it’s less expensive for the facility to have a laser that does many things rather than is the best for a certain purpose. And I think this is another big reason why there are so many mixed reviews of whether or not laser hair removal works well is because there’s such variance across the industry of what lasers are being used. And then, of course, there’s the efficacy of treatment. Each office is going to have their own protocol of how they go about deciding how to treat and what settings to choose. And this is a little bit tricky because lasers are high-powered.

They have the potential of creating all sorts of problems, burns, damage, and so forth, if used inappropriately. And so some offices will shy away from going very strong. At the same time, if you’re not going strong enough, you’re not going to have a permanent reduction in hair. So you have to know that sweet spot that comes from understanding the skin types, what level and settings you can put the laser on for those skin types. And I usually did test spots, so I would have a patient when they came in for their consultation, we would do test spots based on the ballpark of where I felt like their skin tone and hair type warranted on the settings of the laser. And then if they had any irritation or if they had no irritation, it was a really good indicator if I could bump it up a little bit, or if I needed to bump it down or keep it where it was. And this was all within a cautious margin. You know, I wasn’t going super strong. And you don’t want anyone that’s going to go super strong just to see if they can. But at the same time, someone who’s being too timid with the settings on the laser is charging you without giving you a good treatment.

So it’s kind of finding that sweet zone. Also, some patients have very sensitive skin and so they’ll turn really bright red and they’ll kind of almost get like, little hives while you’re treating them and that clears up within like, five minutes. Other people have a lot more irritation and truly do need the lasers to be turned down and possibly have just more treatments to get the results that they want. So doing little test spots helps the technician to know where they need to be on their settings, helps them to fine-tune it to the client that they have in front of them, and ultimately will result in you getting better treatment because of the way the hair cycles work. So basically, your hair grows in these cycles and the cycle finishes out and a new hair cycle grows in about every four to five weeks and maybe three to five weeks. But we don’t know exactly. But kind of where that transition point between cycles of hair growth occurs is somewhere right around an average of four weeks, which is why we recommend treatments being done every four to six weeks to get that next cycle.

So if we are wanting to get the best results for our client, we want to hit each cycle really well. If it takes us like three treatments to really narrow in on where the best settings is for that particular client, then we’ve already treated three hair cycles and now we’re kind of doing what you would call a touch-up and touch-ups are going to have a variety of hair in different hair cycles coming in. Because we’ve already treated a fair amount of hair, it’s a lot more difficult to get as good a result. But again, safety first. Always safety first. And you don’t want someone who’s going to be too aggressive, but someone who’s going to be overly cautious, maybe because they just don’t have enough experience to really give you that more permanent reduction in hair loss. So just things to consider when you’re visiting the consultation. And so while there isn’t like a direct recommendation of where to go or how to pick where you have laser hair removal. Looking at what lasers they have available. How your technician or care provider is going through and deciding how they’re going to treat you.

All of those are going to give you a really good idea of. Is this the right place for me to be getting my treatment? Ultimately, it comes down to a gut feeling, but this gives you some consideration to take with you when you go to your consultation, and then you have some responsibility in the results as well. Make sure that you’re telling your technician what results in you’re seeing. There are so many things that they can’t see once you leave the office that you need to let them know, how is it working? Is it not working if and where you’re having any irritation, if and where you’re having a less pronounced hair reduction than you think you should, and maybe that area isn’t giving as good of treatment or areas got missed? These are all things that you want to let them know about each treatment. Don’t wait until you’ve had like five treatments and then be like, oh well, it never really seemed like any of the hair fell out. They can’t see what happens in the four to five weeks or maybe six weeks between your treatments and so they rely on you to tell them this kind of important information to help you get the best treatment possible.

Alright, so now let’s talk about how would you prepare for laser hair removal. Everyone’s going to give you slightly different instructions. Follow the instructions of the location that you choose to have your treatment done at, but here are a few things that I would recommend really important that you don’t remove hair by plucking or waxing. About four weeks prior to you having any laser hair removal treatment, you can’t treat a hair that’s not there and so we need to make sure that all the hairs in that cycle have an opportunity to be there. So only shave between and before laser hair removal treatments and then prior to your laser hair removal appointment you’re going to want to make sure that you have shaved the area nicely before a consult. You may want to do that a couple of days in advance so that they can actually see what’s there. But before a treatment appointment, you’re going to want to shave maybe the evening before, depending on what time your appointment is and how fast your hair grows. The idea is that you can see the little black pigment in the hair. So maybe if you like run your hand over the skin you would slightly feel a little bit of a raised hair follicle there, but barely mostly that you just want to be able to see it.

Any hair that’s too long is actually going to distract the laser and the laser will just burn the hair that’s sticking above the skin instead of going all the way down to the root of the hair and treating the root follicle, which is where you’re going to get the permanent reduction. And then of course, just as a side note, electrolysis would be very different from that. You actually need to have enough hair there to grab onto. So you’re going to want to follow instructions for electrolysis completely different than what I just told you about barely having any hair above the skin. And then what should you expect from a laser hair treatment? What happens afterward? So immediately following your treatment you are likely to feel a little bit sensitive around the area treated. It might feel a little bit tingly or burning similar to a slight sunburn. Expect there to be a little bit. Of red inflammation around each of the hair follicles. And the hair follicles themselves can be thicker looking and darker because they’ve been signed and they can almost look like they’ve kind of puffed up a little bit. But over the next couple of days, your body’s going to eject those little dead treated hair follicles and they’re going to disappear.

The redness will calm down, and for a couple of weeks, you’re going to have this nice, smooth skin without any hair or stubble remaining until the next cycle of hair starts to grow in. So typically, the time frame of this is the little hair follicles that were treated are going to fall out over about two to four days. And then you’re going to have about two to three weeks with clean hair, and free skin. And then at about three to four weeks after your treatment, you’re really going to start to see that next hair cycle grow in. And that should align with that about four to six weeks next treatment timeframe so that you get that next hair cycle during your next treatment. Most people are thought to have about four to five hair cycles, and that’s why you’re going to need at least four to five treatments to really see a good reduction in hair growth. You’re going to space those about six weeks apart for larger surface areas. I always recommend it to my patients closer to eight treatments. I think that there are just so many little tiny hairs that it just kind of need those extra treatments.

And some people have more hair cycles, and some people just need those extra treatments. And so plan on when you see the pricing, plan on doing up to eight treatments, you need less. Then you can always be happily surprised that you only needed five because of the hair cycles. You’re also going to want to commit to staying on schedule with your treatment. Check with the office and make sure especially right now, I feel like everyone is so busy and overbooked that you want to check and make sure you don’t need to schedule several appointments out so that you can stay right on that hair schedule. Otherwise, you’re going to be kind of off and you’re going to be retreating, touching up hairs, and missing all of the really good hairs that are in their prime of when they need to be treated to get rid of them. And then the last question that I get asked a lot about laser hair removal is, what about at-home laser removal devices? Okay, so I know it seems super tempting. The cost of a home laser device is so much less, and once you’ve bought it, you can do as many areas of the body as you want.

The problem is that laser hair removal can be dangerous because a laser can cause a burn in order to have it available as an over-the-counter option for individuals who have not been trained, the lasers are definitely not going to be as strong. So here’s what I recommend. I recommend going to a doctor’s office and that you have been recommended, or that has a good reputation, or that you feel good about, or all of the above. And they’re going to do a much better job at getting at least those first five treatments. And so I really recommend getting at least five to six or up to eight treatments. And then if you want to get it a home device, it can be really helpful, especially with PCOS, because you are going to have some areas that have a little bit of regrowth. And so now knowing all of this about the hair cycles of how often you would want to treat and you have to follow the at-home removal device instructions because some of them say you have to treat like once a week because again, they’re not as strong and so they have a whole way of treating it themselves.

But having this knowledge of the hair cycles and everything. You can go through and spot the treat. Because I’m kind of at that place now where after having three kids and going through various hormone fluctuations over the last 20 years. The laser hair removal that I had in high school. I have a couple of patches here and there. But I don’t want to pay for full legs again just to get rid of a couple of little patches that have come back. And so I have been tempted to go ahead and get an at-home laser removal device. If I do, of course, I’ll keep you all posted. But for now, what I would say is to go somewhere where they can really treat the hair that you don’t want and then consider an at-home laser device for touch-ups or areas that you would not go and have someone else treat. Why not treat those yourself if you’ve already bought an at-home laser device. But it also just in other thought is that it’s not comfortable and so it kind of feels like a rubber band snapping you and so having someone else do it for you and being able to kind of zone out is really helpful because while you can numb small areas, you cannot numb large areas.

There is toxicity that you can get from numbing to larger areas. It can cause blood cell problems and cause a whole lot of health problems with that and it can be dangerous. So you can only use numbing cream on small areas at a time. And so it can be uncomfortable. If you have high, high pain tolerance, doing it to yourself may not be a big deal, but if you do not have super high pain tolerance, you may find it even hard to do for yourself. So then you’ve bought this at-home laser device that you really can’t even use because it’s just too uncomfortable. Well, there you have it, friends. Everything that you need to know about laser hair removal and dealing with unwanted hair when you have PCOS. I hope you have found this episode helpful. If you have, I hope you subscribe to the PCOS Repair podcast so that you get notified each week when a new PCOS health topic becomes available. And if you have any further questions about this episode or any of the other episodes of the PCOS Repair podcast, I would love to have you contact me over on Instagram at Nourished Healthy and we can continue this conversation further.

Until next time. Bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide.

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