More news tomorrow but I am currently pondering shaving off my beard.

The thing is, if I go this route, I’ve been instructed to use an electric razor as it’s bad to cut yourself while undergoing EBR. I have been doing an informal survey of men and can’t seem to find any who use electric shavers of any kind. The responses I get from men I’ve talked to range from “no I don’t use one” to “electric razors are one of the most successful hoaxes perpetrated against men over the last 50 years.” If anyone out there can recommend a decent one (comfort is more of a concern than price), I’d be grateful. I was last clean shaven for about a month at age 19.

Carrie has never seen me without a beard.

The issue is that you need your facial hair or lack thereof to be roughly the same every day for six weeks during the EBR treatment. This sounds like not that big a deal–I could just trim my beard every two days. But it is quite likely all the hair below my jawbone will fall out. As one person on the US survivors list explained to me:

I lost all hair below the jaw line to upper chest. And that hair hasn’t come back and I had EBR aug-sept 2007.

Another wrote:

I imagine your beard would look pretty funny while doing EBR, and until it grew back it will be as smooth as a baby’s butt.

Comfort is definitely a bigger issue than cost.