Laser Skin Resurfacing
High-Tech Facial Peel
What is laser skin resurfacing?
If people want a more effective (and expensive) alternative to chemical peels, they could go through laser skin resurfacing. This procedure uses an intense light beam to treat the damaged regions of the skin. It sort of vaporizes the skin adjacent to the sunken areas such as wrinkles and scars to have everything levelled.
What does laser skin resurfacing treat?
The procedure of laser skin resurfacing, just like with chemical peels, is to get rid of blemishes, skin pigmentations, wrinkles and acne scars. But a great advantage of laser skin resurfacing over the other kinds of facial treatments is that it has other more constructive effects. It can also be utilized to remove moles, birth marks, warts, skin lesions, and even hair and tattoo. This treatment is sometimes used in conjunction with liposuction too. After an individual undergoes liposuction, laser skin resurfacing is employed to remove the remaining fat tissues.
What are the different kinds of laser skin resurfacing?
The main types of laser skin resurfacing are carbon dioxide (CO2) laser and erbium laser. The earlier technology of CO2 laser had good results, but it also came with a lot of side effects such as redness, blistering and skin infections. So better versions (scanned and pulsed CO2) were developed which had less of the thermal harms. Erbium laser skin resurfacing later came out. The problem was its efficacy was more or less the same with the CO2 laser treatments. In any case, bother CO2 and erbium laser are categorized as ablative laser treatments.
Ablative laser skin resurfacing is invasive as it targets to upper layer of the skin called the epidermis. After such procedure, a person’s skin surface will ooze and appear red and swollen.
There is also the non-ablative kind of laser skin resurfacing. In contrast to the ablative type, this is less invasive and would deal with the skin layer below the epidermis, which is the dermis. This laser skin resurfacing heats up the fibroblasts (collagen synthesizing cells) to condense the underlying collagen – essentially treating imperfections like wrinkles from the inside out.
Ablative lasers provide dramatic results but with more complications, while non-ablative laser skin resurfacing allows patients to recover faster but with a lesser amount of effect. A form of procedure called fractional resurfacing combines the favourable results and reduced adverse effects of both ablative and non-ablative treatments.
What could people expect after undergoing laser skin resurfacing?
Patients should anticipate redness, swelling, and crusting after the laser skin resurfacing. The doctor will give after care instructions and prescribe medications to alleviate the inflammation that would occur. If a bandage is applied, the physician will be the one to replace the dressing during the follow-up visit.
Other information about laser skin resurfacing
Healing from laser skin resurfacing usually takes 7 to 21 days, although redness might last for quite a few weeks. Sun exposure is strictly avoided, as the skin is very sensitive from the procedure plus there is an evident impairment of the skin integrity. A typical cost of laser skin resurfacing ranges from $350 to $2000 per session. There is no one-laser-fits-all treatment so it is best to consult a professional about the appropriate laser therapy. Folks are also reminded that they should give the doctor their complete medical history (includes medications, use of herbs, history of skin infections, etc.) as this would be vital to prevent undesirable health consequences.