The patient is a 68 year old woman who noted wrinkles about her mouth. She thought they made her appear old and wished to remove them.
Laser Treatment for Wrinkles Before and After
As can be seen from the patient’s CO2 laser resurfacing before and after photos, most of her wrinkles are gone after only one treatment. The fractional laser (fraxel) and the erbium simply cannot remove as many wrinkles when treating moderate to deep wrinkles and the results of the carbon dioxide laser treatment are also more long lasting.
Types of Laser Treatments for Face
Lasers have been used to treat different facial issues for many years. The first lasers were used simply to burn growths about the face and body. After that, the carbon dioxide laser was developed where the amount of energy received by the hand piece could be modulated, in terms of not only the power but duration of the pulse of energy. This could help by applying an energy pulse and waiting until the heat dissipated from the skin so as to make the energy delivery more safe. The CO2 laser made it much easier to control the amount of energy and to provide a smooth coverage of larger areas of skin.
Subsequent lasers have been invented in an attempt to shrink skin but these lasers have been, for the most part unsuccessful. Lasers with lesser energy levels have been developed such as the erbium laser but these lasers are rather for fine wrinkles and have high recurrence rates.
Laser Treatment for Face Side Effects
Laser skin resurfacing with the laser is very safe when performed under the supervision of an experienced physician. Probably as important as the use of the laser itself, it is imperative that patients are followed by the physician after treatment to make sure adequate skin care is being performed and the patient is healing satisfactorily. Besides this, there can be some lightening of the skin after laser treatment, especially in the deeper areas. At the procedure, the plastic surgeon can feather the edges of the treated areas so as to not have a demarcation line, where the edge of the treated area can be seen.
Laser Skin Resurfacing Cost
Laser skin resurfacing is one of those very affordable cosmetic surgery treatments because it can be performed under local anesthesia.
