Is Scalp Micropigmentation a painful procedure?

Scalp Micropigmentation or SMP for short is Micro-needling or Micro tattooing of the head. The hair loss treatment needs a high precision in practice to create natural hair follicles that clearly give a shaved look for both density fill and full fill procedures.

Most Scalp Micropigmentation practitioners use microneedle to place pigments in the correct layer of skin, which is known as the epidermis. Pigment placement needs practice and great experience of artists from holding tattoo machines to the amount of pressure, time, and depth of needle into the layer of skin which is very important. 

Pain will be caused by each poke in different parts of the scalp from the crown to the mid-scalp region and moving on to the frontal scalp region. In each region, there is an intricate network of the nervous system that will receive and send pain signals to the brain.

The level of pain during the procedure could be very different from one individual to another as pain tolerance can differ for each person. Based on our portfolio of procedures and clients’ feedbacks for most of the clients, pain is in the range of tolerance(in 1-10 pain scale, pain is 4-6). Pain level can increase as the procedure is close to ending. As a fact, the frontal scalp region and sides are usually more sensitive as those areas have a denser network of nerves. 

Ladies usually have better pain tolerance than men. However; in rare practices, men have experienced only a pain level of 2 without using any numbing agent. Based on Pixel Pigment’s safe treatment guideline it is recommended to use numbing agents such as lidocaine after the procedure, as we can get better results in scalp Pigments Holding Ability which can change and be affected after the procedure. However, if the client doesn’t have any allergic reaction to the numbing agent and the first session of the procedure has been executed with an intolerable level of pain with consideration of all related conditions we may use some amount of numbing agents for remained sessions to reduce the sharpness of pain and make treatment less painful.

Drinking alcohol or doing drugs can severely change the sensitivity of nerves and reduce pain tolerance dramatically. As result, each client must be informed of to-dos and not to-dos list by Pixel Pigemetn’s safe treatment guideline. Drinking or doing drugs is strictly prohibited at least three days before procedure as alcohol can also change the Scalp Pigments Holding Ability or scalp PHA for short.