How soon after facelift can I treat my scars with IPL? Thank you.

Plastic surgery scars require attention after surgery so that they remain cosmetically-appealing and barely noticeable. In our office, we use a protocol for scars that minimizes their activity in the 6-8 weeks after surgery. If you have late plastic surgery scars, you may also require laser and RF therapy to help reduce the longterm effects of the scarring. Keloids, hypertrophic scars, widened scars, red scars, and hyperpigmented scars all require scar modulation with topical creams followed by lasers and RF therapy. Topical skincare should be directed to a specific need, whether for pigmentation or hypertrophy and our office can guide you through the process to obtain the correct Plato’s Scar cream or Melarase cream for hypertrophy and discoloration. In terms of lasers, we would employ the vbeam laser for redness, Venus Viva RF, PRP microneedling, chemical peels, and Morpheus 8, fractional erbium, or fractional co2. All of these have their individual benefits. Most of all, we recommend you visit a solid plastic surgeon who understands surgical scar revision, laser therapy, and RF therapy for scars.

Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

In our practice, using intense pulsed light treatment for facelift scars is unusual. If you and your surgeon feel that it is indicated for better outcome, now would be a good time to initiate these procedures.

Most people have some pinkness to their scars initially as part of the inflammatory phase of healing. Following scar massage with Skin Medica's scar recovery gel for a few weeks, most scars have faded well and are hard to detect. So I would recommend waiting 3 months before any laser or light therapy, because you may find that you really don't need it.

If we are going to use IPL on facelift scars, we will usually begin sometime between 6 and 8 weeks postop.  IPL can be helpful in diminishing the color mismatch between the scars and the surrounding skin, although pulse dye laser can be more effective in treating the red pigment in scars. If the issue is the thickness or bumpiness of the scars, steroid injection can be a better answer than IPL. Most scars from a facelift performed without significant skin tension will heal well without any intervention, if given enough time.

Most scars of the face heal very well without any additional treatment.  If you still feel the need to do something I would typically wait 6-8 weeks after your procedure.  There is always a risk that the scars worsen.  

If the facelift has been well executed there should be minimal tension on the skin in the scars almost always end up nearly invisible. I would advise you against any external treatment if you're healing is normal.

I usually start treating scars at about 6 weeks after surgery.  IPL is good if you just want to improve the color.  There are other lasers that work well if the scar is hypertrophic - or ropey. 

Four to six weeks is what I
usually tell my patients to give the incision adequate time to heal and if they
are in a hurry to improve the red discoloration of the scars. This, however, improves with time even without IPL.

Fortunately almost all facelift ncisions heal well. The face is very forgiving and scars do well even in darker skin. Redness is a normal product of healing and usually resolves in time . It takes 10 months or more for scars to settle down and I would wait until then to make a decision. IPL is rarely needed.

It can take several weeks to heal. Typically by week 6-8 scars should look better, not requiring additional treatments. Please follow up with your Plastic Surgeon as each case varies.