Question: I have been reading up online about laser skin resurfacing. I am a little confused since I have read about CO2 lasers, Fraxel lasers, dot lasers, etc. What might be the best laser skin resurfacing treatment for a 42-year-old woman with freckles?
Answer: I am not sure that there is a best laser out there, but I think that it is important that you seek out a well-qualified and experienced professional to perform the treatments and seek out one that can customize your treatment options so that you end up with the result that you desire while minimizing any sort of downtime. We have multiple different lasers Quintessa Medical Spa and each can be used in various different ways so that we can customize someone’s treatment plan while minimizing any downtime. At 42 years old you most likely do not need a significant amount of wrinkle reduction, so a relatively superficial erbium laser resurfacing, in combination with good skin care and hydroquinone would most likely give you the result that you desire with only a few days of downtime. If you want to try to completely minimize downtime then I would most likely recommend broadband light, which is a form of intense pulsed light that can target the pigmentation in your skin without injuring the actual skin itself and thus there is no healing time and no downtime, but you can get tremendous improvement in the pigmentation. Frequently we will actually combine these different lasers and perform what we call a 4-week challenge where we will perform a very intense broadband light treatment, followed by a superficial laser and ProFractional laser treatment 2 weeks later and then again 2 weeks later we will repeat the intense broadband light treatment. Total downtime with this is only about 1 to 2 days with the laser treatments, but we can cause significant rejuvenation to the skin and a wonderful improvement in the pigmentation.
