The amount of time you will experience post treatment side effects from Fraxel depends on several factors
- The energy settings and number of passes of the laser
- Your skin health
- Number of treatments and spacing between treatments
- Your ethnic background
- Post treatment adherence to instructions
You mention you have pale skin - but this is not an indicator of avoidance of possible post treatment hyperpigmentation. Because scarring requires more aggressive treatment, the risk of post inflammatory hyperpgimentation increases.
Your GENETIC background will help the physician treat you properly. If you have a background that includes Mediterranean, Asian, South American of African ancestry, you are more prone to hyperpigmentation and your physician will probably pretreat with a melanin suppressor.
Acne scars require multiple treatments spaced at various intervals. Following treatments you must be diligent with sun protection....including 30SPF or higher sunscreen and a hat. You don't want to end up trading scars for brown patches!
Swelling and bronzing are again determined by the treatment settings. With average settings you can expect about 3 days of swelling and bronzing should be gone in 5 to 7. But again, this will vary depending on the variables listed above.
Your scars will improve over multiple treatment sessions, but they may not be removed completely, so set your expectations accordingly.
