11 months ago
The older ultrapulsed CO2 (carbon dioxide) laser resurfacing treatments involved removal of the entire surface of the skin creating a wound equivalent to a second degree burn. This took about 12 days to heal and the redness that developed after healing persisted for many months, sometimes up to a year or more. There was a slight risk of scarring from the procedure. The Fraxel Repair, or CO2 laser does not ablate all the skin at one session. Many pinpoint laser beams penetrate the skin but leave normal skin in between these treated areas. These non-affected skin sections, which are very tiny, help speed up the healing compared to the older CO2 laser. Healing occurs in as few as 3 to 4 days or up to 10 or more days, but the healing is more comfortable than with the old CO2 and there is much less redness, and even less risk of scarring. The old CO2 laser had induced lighter skin as a delayed (up to one year after the procedure) reaction which was a negative side effect. This has not been reported with the Fraxel Repair laser at low to moderate energy settings yet. The Fraxel Repair, not to be confused with the Fraxel Restore which is not a CO2 laser, has only been available to physicians for approximately one year. More long term data is needed. The Portrait Plasma device uses the thermal energy of plasma as opposed to laser, to resurface the skin and provides similar results to the Fraxel along with some tightening. Fraxel is possibly safer on darker-skinned individuals than Portrait.
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