OK, so I may have exaggerated when I said this blog post "might make some of you think less of me". I'll elaborate - any immensely shallow people who read this blog might think less of me. To be fair, I think you're all lovely, not overly judgemental people, so I'll probably be OK ;) This is something I've never blogged about before - I've never even told my friends about this. This is immensely personal.
First, let me give you a bit of a history. Since I was about 14 years old, I've suffered from PCOS - Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Believe me when I say, it's a bitch - just when us women thought "OK, we've got periods and childbirth, we can handle that - no more", Mother Nature gets her time of the month and decides to throw PCOS in there just to make the lives of the unlucky minority just that bit worse. Inexplicable pain around "that time", increased chance of infertility and - the bane of my life - hirsuitism. Wikipedia describes this as "the excessive hairiness on women in those parts of the body where terminal hair does not normally occur or is minimal" - sounds awful, doesn't it? It is. Since the age of 14, this has been my life. And it has been horrific. In my case, it's on my neck and my chin - it's not as bad as others I've seen, but it's still horrible to deal with. There used to be so many times I turned things down, made up excuses to avoid going out - all to avoid people seeing it.
I have since matured - learnt to hide it, learnt to live with it. The way I see it, it's a part of me - it's been a part of me for 9 years. This does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean I don't still hate this thing. This is the reason it takes me ages to get ready to go anywhere, the reason I wear quite a bit of make-up, the reason I constantly wear scarves. I would love for this not to be the case anymore - I've seen my face without make-up and my skin is pretty damn gorgeous , even if I say so myself - apart from the problem area.
So, dear readers, I decided to do something about it. Well, my mum & aunty did, but I want SOME of the credit please. You've all heard of Groupon, right? Well, basically, my aunty found a "Groupon" for reduced IPL treatment - intense pulsed light. It's similar to laser treatment - but faster and cheaper. It's basically a specially constructed xenon flash lamp and focusing optics (thanks Wikipedia!). An intense beam of light is applied to the area - that is then converted to heat and burns the root and the entire shaft of the hair. I had my first session tonight - it bloody hurt! Imagine someone flicking your face over and over again with an elastic band...that kind of pain. Not agonising, but just irritating. But all the time I was thinking how worth it it's going to be - it's not going to be a cure all, it's not going to permanantly remove the hair, just reduce it - but that's what I want. I can't wait to be able to wake up next to someone and not have the first thought be - "Shit, my chin!". Can't wait not to have to spend at least £50 a month, if not more, on make-up to conceal it. The pain is worth it if I'm going to be able to have a close to normal life.
This has actually been one of the hardest posts I've ever had to write. I have never written anything so personal before! So, I hope you all enjoyed it :)
