Fraxel Laser before & after photos
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Fraxel Laser Cost $2,200 average cost

Fraxel a Waste of Time and Money

203 posts
Comments (3)
Updated 16 Jul 2008
Posted 24 Mar 2008
Not Worth It
Spent: $1,000 in Metairie, LA
I swelled badly for the first 5 days, then by 7 days, my skin looked great! scars were faded, pores reduced, etc. Then by 21 days after the peeling was done, i looked the way I did before I even had Fraxel. They say I need more fraxel treatments, but why can't I see a difference after the first one? Why shell out $4,000 - $5,000 when the results only last about a month or so after the peeling is done. Not only are my scars back, but I still have the brown spots on my face. I think I will stick to glycolic acid peels, skin bleachers and Olay Regenerist again. At least my results are longer lasting with these, and much less expensive!

Updated on Jul 16, 2008:

I wish i had never had Fraxel!  i paid $900.  the doctor said that it would take care of the dark spots on my cheeks and it would make the pores on my cheeks look just like the pristine skin on the sides of my face.  i thought what he means was that the pores on my cheeks would go away and look like pristine skin, but just the opposite happened!!
the dark spots are still there, but it looks like a section of flesh has been removed over the dark spots and healed indented like that.  i think she overdid it.  Now where the dark spots were is now an obvious indentation of flesh.
and worse yet, my pores are still there, but my prevoiusly beautiful, clear, pristine skin i used to have on the rest of my face looks like there are small pores all over the place! it is like my face is now riddled with tiny little holes all over!
This has been four months since my treatment, and I am so depressed over what i allowed this doctor to do to me.  I just ask people to please not rush into this.  make sure you see before and after close ups of patients.  And beware. the doctor ususally likes to take the "after" pic about a week or two after the patient's fraxel treatment while the face is still slightly plump from residual swelling.  once the swelling goes down, you are left with horrific results. 

This review is the subjective opinion of a RealSelf member and not of RealSelf, Inc.

Vote: 8 members found this review helpful

Comments (3)

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finee (42 posts) 28 Jul 2009
was it fraxel restore or fraxel repair laser you had? Iam sorry to hear that
Krystal (203 posts) 29 Jul 2009
you know i don't know which one it was. but i will never do that again!
Robert T (108 posts) 14 Dec 2010
Krystal it's good to see somebody else speaking out against Fraxel and lifestyle lift.

Instead of glycolic acid peels I would recommend TCA peels. They and Phenol (which isn't usually recommended for most people) are the ONLY two that reach into the dermis. Most peels including Glycolic only reach into the epidermis (outer layer of skin) even at a very strong strength.

If you want to work on deeper scars, wrinkles TCA is usually the best way to go.

The negative is that there is usually a week downtime. My experience is the procedures that have the longest lasting dramatic results also have the longest recovery time.

Hope that helps.

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