Pain - my first needle epilation session

Six weeks ago, I had my first needle epilation session in a small studio. The practitioner was competent. The treatment was scheduled for one and a half hours, but after 67 minutes, the pain became unbearable, and I stopped the treatment. The practitioner wasn't enthusiastic; after all, those were her treatment minutes. I have a few questions that no one has been able to answer so far, and I haven't found any information either on websites or in the r/needleepilation Reddit. I have heavy, directionless, problematic beard growth. When the beard grows, my facial skin dries out, flakes, and becomes severely inflamed. When I shave dry, the skin around my neck, mouth, and upper lip is always very red. When I shave wet, I often cut myself, less so today because I use the Fusion 5. Shaving is the most annoying, ugliest, and most disgusting thing in the world. Conclusion: the beard has to go, one way or another. In the first session, the therapist treated here and there: temples, cheeks, neck, upper lip. For the next session, she recommended a local anesthetic and assured me that she would only focus on one area. I'm now worried that this will take several years given the strength of my beard growth. I also have the impression that my random beard growth makes the treatment extremely difficult; the therapist had to keep restarting because the hairs sometimes point east, sometimes west, sometimes north, sometimes south. I had my last shave five days before the appointment. What was particularly painful were not the stitches but rather the removal of the electro-epilated follicle from my facial skin with micro tweezers. I also had the impression that the longer the treatment lasted, the greater the pain peak. As if the pain accumulates over the course of the treatment and the sensitivity of my nervous system becomes increasingly greater. I'm a bit perplexed. Alternatives are not possible, ruled out by a dermatologist's assessment because the beard is gray, meaning it contains no color pigments. Does anyone have experience and can encourage me?