Full Ablative Laser Co2re - what to expect?

Skin prep is very important before and after co2 laser. Start with Melarase PM and Melarase AM, followed by extra Vitamin C to promote collagen production. Best, Dr. KaramanoukianLos Angeles

The benefits of fractional CO2 laser resurfacing include faster recovery and consistently excellent results. The depth of injury to the skin and length of recovery is dependent upon the settings used by your surgeon. Discuss the recovery time with your surgeon. As an example, we also prescribe ant-virals 2 days prior to re-surfacing, as well as antibiotics on the day of the procedure. We encourage the use of vinegar soaks following surgery (anti-fungal) and use growth factors to speed healing. We sedate all of our re-surfacing patients to allow a painless procedure yet provide a significant amount of energy with significant results. With our laser settings, most patients are applying make-up by day 7 and back to work. CO2 Fractional laser re-surfacing provides consistently excellent results. Good luck with your procedure.  

Hi Emma. It's best to have all of your questions answered by the physician performing your treatment before you have the treatment done. Different devices have different settings and there are different levels of treatment which all come with varying amounts of downtime. You will feel intense heat after your treatment that can last up to 24 hours. Your face will look worse before it looks better. Depending on the level of treatment downtime can vary from 1-2 weeks, with full healing taking several weeks to months. Again, best to have all of your questions addressed before you get the treatment. Best wishes.

The healing time for any laser, especially the more aggressive lasers such as fully ablative CO2, is completely dependent on the doctor performing the procedure.  The range is one week fully reepithelialized (new skin) and visually fully healed within 7-10 days vs still beet red after three months.  It all depends on the settings of the laser the the doctor performing the procedure.

With the advent of fractionated ablative technology, full laser ablation is not really performed all that much anymore. I can get an awesome results with fractionated ablation with less downtime and adverse events than full laser ablation. Although the textbooks always say that full laser ablation is the gold standard, many doctors perform fractional laser ablation for the above mentioned reasons. 

I would imagine your doctor has provided you with a lot of information already, so you may find some conflicting information when you get a bunch of cooks in the kitchen. This can be a tough recovery, especially if you are getting an ablative procedure which removes entire layers of skin with each pass of the laser. A little less brutal, is a fractional laser which preserves some the skin elements resulting in a faster recovery. This is operator dependent, which is to say the machine can be adjusted from very conservative to very aggressive. The recovery is in direct correlation. I would say that fractional laser resurfacing is the go to procedure these days. Nevertheless, it can take 2-3 weeks before you can get out of the house with some makeup on. Antibiotics, antivirals, lubrication, lubrication, lubrication. If someone knows how to speed up mother nature I would like to know. Slowing her down is easier.

The healing from any resurfacing procedure is largely dependent upon the depth of the injury (laser resurfacing, mechanical dermabration or chemical peels). In general for ablative CO2 laser resurfacing you can expect to be red and "oozing" for about a week. After 7-10 days you can usually start using makeup and cover the pink / redness that will take a few more weeks to slowly fade completely.
During the few days you will look terrible and not want to be in public and you will be wondering if you made the right choice, but by the second week you are already looking good happy you did it!

Hope this helps.

the Picosure laser is a newer laser which fires its laser beam, 1,000 faster than other lasers which means there is little to no downtime. This means little to no redness, no downtime and much less risk of hyper-pigmentation. you will need at least 3 treatments, spaced a month apart.these lasers are newer and much more expensive so they may be harder to find. Select plastic surgeons and dermatologists are the most likely doctors to have them.david berman md