“If you can only afford 2 treatments.....”
Fraxel Laser: Worth it
Pain: Uncomfortable
Fraxel stands for Fractional Treatment which means 2 treatments won't do much if anything because you have only treated 20-30% of the total area of your skin. You have to do the 5 treatments a month apart! PLUS it's important to grasp the idea that the improvement is exponential, that is, with 4th and 5th treatments you will really see the difference and it keeps on improving for several months after that. Why? Because it takes that long for your body to make the new collagen stimulated by Fraxel and with each subsequent treatment you are not only improving the quality of your existing collagen, but you keep on making new collagen which every treatment you make over the new collagen it grows and grows. It will be a full year before you will know how much improvement has occurred.
I have had Fraxel personally and seen very pleasing results. At 58 I was really getting baggy around the eyes and that has almost gone now. I have also treated over 2000 patients with Fraxel and have no unhappy patients that have completed their course of 5 treatments.
May 13, 2009Comments and replies (36)
24 posts
14 May 2009
So far I've done 3 treatments and plan on doing a total of 6. Did you ever notice the scars getting worse or new ones appearing?
17 posts
17 May 2009
Thanks for the entry. It's nice to hear from someone who's both a provider and a patient. And I hadn't heard the fact that the improvement is exponential, which really does make going through the whole course of treatments sound necessary.
17 posts
18 May 2009
Dr. Molton, would the number of passes be limited by how aggressive you want to be, and how well the patient would tolerate the treatment? I wasn't counting the number of passes I received for my last treatment, but whatever she did, I ended up pretty red and swollen this time around. Not sure I'd want it to be worse than this.
5 posts
18 May 2009
I've had three fraxel restore treatments and the doctor wants to wait a few months to see if I like the results. Should I do 2 or three more treatments anyway? Is there a downside to waiting months in between treatments? I also am having the IPL for rosacea once a month. What should I do? I'm 49 large pores is the reason for the fraxel for me. Thanks,Tammy
17 posts
18 May 2009
28forever, not to answer on behalf of Dr. Molton, but I asked my own doc about whether it was ok to wait several months between treatments 3 & 4 (due to my busy schedule) and she said there'd be no problem, only that I might peel a little more after treatment #4 because of the long wait. But she said the end result would be the same.
17 posts
19 May 2009
Dr. Molton, is there any reason you couldn't repeat the Fraxel treatments every few years? Any limits to how many treatments you can have over a lifetime?
5 posts
20 May 2009
Dr Michael Molton, What would be your tmt for 49 year old white female fair skin large pores, but not necessarily breakouts, hundreds of milia underneath and above eyes. if my skin was tighter the pores would be gone. that's what happens when I pull my skin back. I do not need a face lift yet, not enough sagging skin yet. Is the YAG laser a serious skin tightner or is that a waste of hard earned money?
8 posts
20 May 2009
Dr Molton, do you think that using Tazorac before/after the treatments would help with the collagen rebuilding?
2 posts
24 Jun 2009
I certainly agree with Dr Molton's points. Our clinic has performed over 1200 Fraxel Restore treatments. We have had one small scar only in one patient, and none for the last 2 years. Results are really only begin to be seen after 3 treatments, and continue thereafter. We do see some temporary post-treatment hyperpigmentation in darker skin types, but no long-lasting PIH.
19 posts
25 Jun 2009
Yes the pigmentation issue is temporary in my experience too. On the topic of melasma I would be interested in Dr Main's experiences in treating this and what settings he has used. I tell patients (obviously) that it will never disappear and that 30-50% improvement is possible provided they use 35+SPF twice a day (because it's the afternoon sun coming home that does the damage and I often prescribe 5% hydroquinone although the literature doesn't seem to support the efficacy of the latter in this application). Fraxel says 8 & 4 or even 3 every two weeks.