Why did laser treatment result in demarcation lines?

I am a 42-year-old Asian woman. I had full facial Micro Laser Peel (20 micron depth) and 20% ProFractional Laser Resurfacing (200 micron depth) 16 days ago. The day of the procedure, I had a lot of bleeding all over my face and could see very distinct parallel longitudinal red bands (3 on each side) running down my cheeks, as if some of my skin had received far more exposure to the profractional laser than other parts.Beginning a week after treatment I started to get a hyperpigmentation reaction exactly corresponding to the vertical bands on my cheeks. There were no bands on my forehead or chin following the procedure, and I have not had any hyperpigmentation occur on those areas either. Can anyone explain what is going on?

2 answers to “Why did laser treatment result in...”

A: Too much energy for your skin type in those areas

Manish H. Shah, MD

Patients of color need to be aware that they may respond with hypopigmentation or hyperpigmentation when being treated by resurfacing lasers.  It is my opinion that pretreatment is necessary for darker pigmented patients using higher energy lasers.   It sounds like those three areas on your cheeks... more

A: hyperppigmentation from higher density treatment

William Groff, DO

You are exactly right. It sounds like there was overlap of the treatment area and you may have been treated with densities and high as 30-40% in these hyperpigmented areas. We published a study about 1 year ago looking at fractional treatments in Asian skin and our conclusion was that the risk of... more

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