Few words make people’s eyes water as much as the term ‘ingrowing’, and anyone who has had an ingrowing toenail will be wincing more than most.
Ingrowing toenails are extremely painful things, but what about ingrowing hair? Being softer, hair might seem rather less of a pest than a nail jabbing into all those sensitive nerve endings, but it is made of the same material (keratin) and comes with a whole bunch of problems of its own. Thankfully, laser hair treatment can resolve them.
Quite simply, an ingrowing hair is a hair that has grown back into the skin instead of outward. This is naturally more common for people with curly hair. It can often simply appear as unsightly red bumps on the skin if you are white, or as slight discolouration on those with dark skin. On occasion, there is so much hair that it can be seen through the skin.
Not only can ingrowing hairs be painful, but they can be infected too and pus may gather around them in the lumps. This can lead to some very nasty infections, the kind of thing that some people find very entertaining to watch on YouTube, but nobody likes to have themselves.
The NHS advice on preventing ingrowing hairs advises not to shave it. However, while that may be fine for your head or on a man wanting to sport a bushy beard, that is little use for a lady hoping to make her legs, armpits and even her chin (if she does have a few unsightly whiskers) look clear and smooth. Worse still, we could be talking about your bikini line!
While a second resort is to take care with shaving by minimising strokes, rinsing it as much as possible and wetting the hair first, clearly this is a problem for some people. If not shaving isn’t an option and any shaving you do requires lots of extra time, effort and maybe gel too to moisturise everything, surely another solution can be found?
In the short term, a GP may be able to remove the hairs, while exfoliants, creams and antiseptics may go some way towards stopping them from growing or at least preventing them from becoming too badly infected.
However, the same NHS site that suggests not shaving is an option is somewhat more helpful when it suggests laser hair removal as a long-term solution.
Just as an ingrowing toenail sufferer won’t need all their toenails removed, so it will be that only particular hairs ingrow. The key, therefore, is to have laser treatment on them (or it), to ensure that it is sent packing, no longer to be a problem.
Laser hair removal is not a lifelong solution; although the follicle is destroyed, a new one can emerge and sprout new hair within two years, though it can take longer.
Even so, that can mean a long time without having ingrowing hair trouble. Whether it causes minor irritations or horrible big lumps that get infected and full of pus, an ingrowing hair is something you can do without, so if you have one or think you might, getting it seen to can save you a whole load of trouble.