Dermarolling and laser hair removal

[opentable]

Hi Sarah,

I'm new to dermarolling and any help would be much appreciated. I've had stretch marks pretty much all over my body (upper arms, breasts, hips, lower back, inner/outer thighs, calves) since puberty and am finally trying to do something about them. I'm a 26 year old female of Indian descent with medium brown skin; all of my marks are lighter than my natural skin tone. I've been exfoliating and applying pure shea butter daily over the last few months and have seen a very slight improvement in some of the more shallow marks.

My plan is to combine use of a 1.5mm dermaroller with single needling; I have a dermaroller but am waiting for the single needles to be back in stock so I can purchase them. I do have a few questions though:

1) I am also battling ingrown hair issues and am about to begin a laser hair removal process for many parts of my body using a YAG laser. Do you know anyone who has undergone laser hair removal and dermarolling for SMs at the same time? Should I avoid doing this simultaneously? I am worried about hyperpigmentation. My acne/ingrown hairs do tend to leave hyperpigmented scars.
2) Instead of Infadolan, can I apply pure, unrefined shea butter to my skin directly after dermarolling/single needling? I am unsure if the Infadolan would clog my pores as I do have acne-prone skin.

Any other tips would be very helpful. Thanks!

[SarahVaughter]

The skin absorbs light from lasers and that absorbed light heats up the skin (you can actually cut steel with sufficiently powerful laser light). Everything in the skin absorbs laser light but some parts (for example dark colored parts) absorb it better, especially if specific wavelengths of light are used. Thus you can target for example hemoglobin in blood and destroy (seal) spider veins with heat. With laser epilation, you target melanin pigment in the hairs. Melanin will absorb the laser light and the heat will temporarily weaken or destroy\burn the hair bulb.

The problem is that skin itself also contains melanin. It is a pigment that makes up the color of the skin. The darker the skin the more melanin it contains. The skin in some cases can reacts to laser treatments by hyperpigmentation (which is caused by melanin overproduction). The heat simply stimulates melanocytes into overproducing melanin or the skin gets burnt.

The skin in some rare cases (in individuals very prone to hyperpigmentations) can also overproduce melanin as a reaction to dermarolling or needling but the hyperpigmentation will eventually disappear.

Laser treatments are much more prone to trigger hyperpigmentation than dermarolling because dermarolling does not heat up the skin.

You can combine dermarolling or needling and laser epilation treatments but the skin should be healed before you do the laser session.

Do a test patch first to see how long does it take for your skin to heal from rolling or needling.

If you have very many stretch marks, buy a 1.5 mm dermastamp instead of the single needle because a dermastamp can do it quicker.

Yes, you can use shea butter after dermarolling.