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  • Resurface the Face With Fractionated CO2
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Female Voice: Today we're going to talk about laser resurfacing, mainly the fractionated CO2 resurfacing. So our patient, she's already been prepped and ready. She's had numbing cream on her face for over an hour and it has been cleaned off and has her corneal shield already in place. The laser that we're going to be using is the fractionated CO2. This is the machine right here. It's a great new technology and that it combines fractionated CO2 with an erbium YAG which gives us two lasers in one so we're able to do a deep resurfacing and then also I'm able to do a more superficial resurfacing to remove some of the discoloration on the skin as well or treat more less deep problems such as lighter wrinkles and younger patients or just give patients more of a freshened look from any kind of sun damage or changes that resonated.

CO2 resurfacing is a great treatment for treatment of fine lines, deeper wrinkles, also to treat just pigmentation problems, acne scars as well as just photoaging. There is a large of age range of patients that we treat with these problems. Sometimes we get younger patients such as our patient here today who has fine lines around her eyes but also had some pigment problems on her cheeks. We see patients with acne scars. Those are on the younger range and then we have patients that have more deeper wrinkles that we treating and they can see a dramatic improvement in those areas, especially around the eyes. The fractionated CO2 resurfacing laser is great and that it allows the pulse energy to be broken up into small areas so that we can go fairly deepen the treatment but also have a short recovery time, a healing time.

The light energy treats and resurfaces the skin by removing the top layer of the skin. When it also gets deep, it stimulates collagen production and this allows for a great amount of tightening of the skin especially around the eye area and some of the fine lines on the cheeks and around the mouth. So as you could see as I put the laser on, there is a beam that shows the size of the laser beam. We want to create an even pattern throughout the face. Ready? As you could see, it makes a grid pattern on the face from the fractionated portion of the CO2. She had some permanent makeup on her eyebrows that you have to take care not to go over the permanent makeup with the laser. You just want a very slight if any overlap of the grid pattern.

How are you tolerating it?

Female Voice: It's really not that bad at all.

Female Voice: It's not? Yey.

Female Voice: No.

Female Voice: My assistant here Sabrina is helping me by holding the Zimmer cooler which is right here and it's giving a cold spray of air after each treatment throughout it so it makes it more tolerable for the patient and then this tube right here is a smoke evacuator. We just completed the first pass with the fractionated CO2. You can see the very small dots of the grid pattern that the laser made. She's even starting to show some pinpoint bleeding on her face which is exactly what is expected and what we want. I'm going to do another pass over the forehead and the cheek area and around the eyes, just to get some of those lines.

Okay now after we've done the two passes with the fractionated CO2, I'm going to do an additional pass with the erbium YAG laser. This is great for helping to remove some of the superficial skin damage as well as some pigment problems on the surface. It could also be use by itself as just more of a superficial laser treatment.

Resurface the Face With Fractionated CO2

Dr. Jessica Kulac explains why resurfacing the skin on the face is a great way to rejuvenate the skin and protect against lighter wrinkles while also treating redness, age spots, and acne scars.