Thermage or Laser Resurfacing for Winkles and Lines?

For fine line and wrinkles around the mouth do you recommend Thermage or Laser resurfacing?

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mouth lip lines

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5 Doctor Answers | Asked by Cheryl in San Jose in California

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Laser resurfacing, Botox, and possible fillers remove lip lines and wrinkles

Thermage is used to tighten skin, especially on the neck-it achieves about 20% of what a facelift achieves. For wrinkles around the mouth, lip lines and lip wrinkles you need laser resurfacing. The newer fractional ablative laser resurfacing with the 2940 Erbium is safer and very effective. New combined non-ablative 1540 and ablative 2940 Erbium fractional is very effective (see reference below.) Even with excellent laser resurfacing, mouth lines lip lines and wrinkles can come back. For... more

Lines around the mouth

Unfortunately, no treatment eradicates all lines around the mouth as the skin creases when the muscles move during speaking and eating. Laser resurfacing helps more than Thermage for this. A small amount of Botox might be given prior to the treatment to minimize the muscle movement so that the new laser resurfaced skin heals on a smoother “bed” but all the movement can’t be eliminated with the Botox, otherwise there would be problems with the lips not functioning correctly... more

CO2 laser resurfacing would be the choice

Thermage primarily helps to tighten the skin. It doesnt help any wrinkles or lines. For the wrinkles around the mouth Fraxel CO2 laser resurfacing is the choice in our office. We also ocassionaly will use the Erbium laser but the results with the CO2 Fraxel Repair has been superior in our hands.

Nissan Pilest, MD

4 reviews

Irvine Dermatologic Surgeon

Erbium laser resurfacing for fine lines and wrinkles.

Hi! Laser and Thermage are completely different in how they work, and in the results you get. In New York, we use erbium laser resurfacing to "erase" many fine lines and wrinkles. Thermage is effective in tightening skin, along the jawline, for example. It does not help with fine lines.

Laser Resurfacing

The gold standard for wrinkles and fine lines has been laser resurfacing and continues to be. Thermage works below the skin's surface or below the wrinkles to heat the collagen and tighten the skin. I would also suggest that it is not an either or and that you may benefit from both treatments as they tend to address different aspects of the skin.