Does IPL destroy/decrease follicles forever?

[AGAssi]

Hello guys,
I'm new here and facing the following dilemma:

Aged 36 now (status NW6, vertex completely blank, front has some hair left), I've always struggled with my immense and heavy chest and abdominal hair, ever since I was a teenager. I never liked it. I'm of Italian origin, so each single chest/abdomen hair used to grow as thick as beard hair or pubic hair, loads of multiple grafts. Tried to shave or wax them, the roots were so mega-thick and restistant that there was only loads of bleeding and infections. Actually strong hair like this might be a perfect donor candidate for a body hair transplant, especially as my donor on the head is way too thin for a transplant.

Exactly one year ago then, spring of 2016, I discovered an IPL unit for home use. It is used to kinda "destroy" the root of the hair "lastingly", which in my case meant: It was WAY better then any form of epilation/waxing I knew before: From session to session the body hair became thinner, fell out and after 3 months of use my chest and abdomen was silk and blank for another 4 to 5 months (rest of summer/fall) without any further treatment neccessary.

Although it looked fine on my body, I worried again about my scalp, thinking that these formerly strong and thick body hair might be a precious donor, the only possible donor for a BHT one day. So, about Christmas of 2016, when I noticed, thin hair started growing back, I did NOT use the IPL unit any loner to see if they recover completely.

Now, 4 months have passed and I'd say there are back to 50% density and 50% strength compared to what it was originally. On the other hand, beach season is coming again, and I wonder about erasing them again by IPL... until I finally sign in for a BHT.

The question is: Will the IPL session do permanent damage to the formerly strong follicles, or do they just fall asleep for some month and will be recover to 100% when I leave them alone long enough?