“Don't Do It, the Areas Treated Look Slightly Leathery and Very Discolored”

I'm a 36 yr old woman who decided to try Fraxel on my cheeks to diminish a few acne scars. The nurse at my plastic surgeons(for botox)office assured me of it's wonderful results and she had done it for her acne scars too. Her face looked great. I did some research... couldn't find anything negative, short of doctors incompetence (This site did not come up nor did any other related sites. You have type in specific key words. I accidentally found this because I was thinking of doing an IPL treatment. This info. shouldn't be so hard to find) Anyway I was sold. I was told that my face would look like a bad sunburn after the procedure, it would only hurt a little and it would heal in 2 weeks.

WRONG! It was extremely painful, I could smell the smoke of my skin burning off. And that,s what my cheeks looked like afterwords. Normal they said. My cheeks oozed pus for 3 days. Then I had a crusty scab for 2 weeks that I had to keep moist with a special cream. It took 5 months for the treated areas to heal. Now I have hyper-pigmented and on one cheek hypo-pigmented (white spots) areas on my cheeks. Recently (8 months later) I noticed those areas are looking a little leathery when I smile. Luckily, it's not that bad but, after reading some of these posts I'm worried it may get a lot worse. My plastic surgeon seems very surprised that this happened and has given me several peels to try to normalize the pigment issues. Now we will start on Retin A and a skin lighting cream.(he is covering the costs) He insists it will get better. Bottom line... my skin looked better before the Fraxel procedure, even though it did help with the acne scars. Wish I didn't do it.