I've had laser surgery by the wrong person and now realize I made a mistake

Joel Schlessinger, MD answers: Fraxel repair - My face is still raw after several days. What can I do?

I had one Fraxel treatment 9 days ago on the upper lip and around the mouth area. It was a very painful procedure to me (I describe it as a fire goatee) even with the numbing cream. It burned (the pain could only be controlled with direct ice application) for about 3 hours. I swelled terribly, and the surrounding skin turned dark brown. As the brown skin came off, the skin underneath oozed, blistered, and turned raw. It's still crusty and blistering.

Please help. I'm young, 38, medium skin toned, and would not consider my skin to be sensitive. I call the doctor (MD Plastic Surgeon, but a technician actually performed the procedure) and they said just to keep regular moisturizer on it. Nothing is working.


Joel Schlessinger, MD
14 months ago

Your question tells me that you had surgery with the wrong person.  Fraxel re:Pair is a major procedure that should have been performed by a real doctor and NEVER a technician.  While it is a good idea for the plastic surgeon so he/she can be doing breast augmentations for 'real' cosmetic surgery patients, it is a horrible idea for you because you now have no one to turn to and are in this dilemma. 

Additionally, no one that is truly interested in a patient such as yourself does partial faces as it just makes the rest of the face look bad.  So, on top of this you are now out of luck because the doctor who collected the fee for your procedure has pawned you off on someone and most likely neither of them really have a clue as to how to get you better or take care of your skin.

In the future, heed this lesson - go to a dermatologist for this type of procedure and if, for something as invasive as this, they say that a 'technician' is going to do it -run, don't walk, away.  As for healing, I would call the surgeon's office and read them this response and ask them what they are going to do to help you out.  It is their problem and they are not fulfilling their part of the doctor-patient bargain.

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