“Fraxel Restore - Pigmentation Dry Skin Problems One Year Later - STAY AWAY”

I went to a very nice plastic surgeon to see about having my skin tightened. Since I had gone to this doctor before for fillers, I thought nothing of it that the office manager told me by email that I should consider fraxel. When they ran a special months later, I thought I could try it out. This plastic surgeon is the fraxel expert, and answers many questions on this board regarding the laser. I went in, talked with the plastic surgeon, and he said fraxel restore "could" help with the tightening. Reading the reviews on here sort of scared me, but he said "they didn't really have fraxel...it was another laser...don't let it scare you." So went in, had the treatment on my face and neck...when they told me it's a couple of days down time, my face was bright pink for almost two weeks. The laser was extremely painful, I would compare the pain to a burn, in between the worst sunburn you ever had, and a burn from a hot stove. This pain lasted a couple of hours. As I healed,and the skin started to flake off, i was left with extremely pink skin. (which thankfully has resided). At the same time, I was left with a line of demarcation around my eyes and dryer skin. I emailed the office, no one contacted me. I emailed the office manager who was always chummy with me, no response. I emailed the doctor, he did not answer my email. I finally went in for an appointment, showed him my line of demarcation, and he said "I never seen this before, I don't know what it is". Instead of telling me it is the result of the fraxel. I also told him I had dry skin and he said he NEVER had anyone tell him that before. He actually took out a picture where my face was completely flushed (mind you not the ones that I took previously, just the one on the day of the appointment) and he said "look fraxel helped your skin", it looks much better." He was very annoyed with me, and told me there was nothing he could do to help with the pigment issues. I also said my skin is dryer (which he told me would be temporary, and it's 10 months later). He said one fraxel treatment would not do that to my skin. He did tell me that I can use skinmedica to help the redness, and then offered me a 10% discount on the next purchase...in his office. The doctor is very nice and skilled, I trusted him more than the ladies who had it on realself. This is a very dangerous machine. Please, please please, don't have this laser unless you are well aware of the side effects (which the doctor or his staff will not tell you). Even in the most skilled hands, you are risking life long pigmentation issues.