Recovering from Erbium Yag Laser Treatment?

Healing afterwards is generally uneventful, consisting of what looks like a deep sunburn that is treated with topical lubricants for 7 to 10 days, at which time the skin is healed. Skin pinkness can persist for weeks, and is minimized by topical steroid crèmes.

As a physician you know that the answer to your question will depend on your skin type, the laser settings used and your underlying condition.  From what you describe as rolled scars you have several good options. Fractionated erbium yag and full ablation erbium yag can usually get the job done but with different amounts of "downtime."  One thing to consider is to do a series of fractionated erbium yag lasers on say end of day Friday and be mostly healed by Monday... more

Recovery from erbium laser treatment depends upon patient - ie age, sex, ethnicity, skin thickness as well as laser related issues such as energy used, whether treatment is full field or fractional (and if fractional - depth of treatment and density of treatment). Also if the laser used has a coagulation mode, whether that is used. My preference for rolling acne scars is combination full field and fractional erbium resurfacing with the Sciton system. We modulate recovery time to the... more