dobefriend

Hi - you'll have improvements for 6 months, maybe longer, so don't evaluate your situation totally yet. The lines on my left side of my face were really quite bad, and no, they didn't all go away, but they are much less deep than they had been. The ones on my right side of my face are barely noticeable.

My Fraxel repair was done in Feb 2009. It's about 10 months out now. I definitely got my money's worth as I still am very happy with it. I will probably return to re-do my neck. Even though there was probably 50% improvement, it's still quite bad. They can't do the same level of zapping to the neck as they can the face, so the results won't be quite as dramatic.

People tell me that my skin continues to look even better. I still have faint vertical lines on my left cheek (the worse of the two), but really, I can live with that. I have kept up with Botox around the eyes and restylane in the lips to try to keep the skin wrinkle free for as long as possible. My neck improved a lot and while I still think I have an old neck, it's SO MUCH better.. The place where I had it done is having another special for $1995 including either 40 units of Botox or a syringe of Restalayne - if you have it done Oct 23 or 24th. Don't know if a trip to Chapel Hill, NC is possible, but just thought I'd throw it out there. Good luck!

yes - dots all over. you'll be fine!

Well, for me, I HAD to go out in public in 4 days b/c my dog had an emergency situation and I had to take him to the vet as my husband was at work. People didn't say anything, but they were dying to, I could tell. Finally, someone asked me if I'd been on a boat (and maybe forgot to use sunscreen!). I went back to work at about 11 days. My face was still pretty darn red, and I had some mineral makeup powder to sort of help, but my skin was so DRY, that I felt in some cases, the makeup made it worse. I have always had very dry skin, so maybe others haven't had the same reaction. The doctor's office had loaded me down with all sorts of creams and lotions to try, and I went to the store and bought a BUNCH of different lotions and creams of the 'ultra healing' type -- Aveeno overnight healing worked the best for me at that point. I *still* have some redness at 2.5 weeks out around my mouth, but it's not bad at all, and a little powder hides it well now that the skin is smoother. Bottom line - you're probably going to look like you've been doing some serious tanning....