What is a good laser alternative to C02 that I can do on a monthly basis? Hoping to maintain good skin.

Fractional CO2 laser is an excellent tool for skin rejuvenation in our center in Santa Monica. We use the fractional multi-depth ablative approach to help resurface the skin, recontour acne scars, improve incisional plastic surgery scars, and reduce surface irregularities from skin tone to dark pigmentation. Our approach utilizes a multi-depth approach that targets melanocytes in the epidermis and collagen fibroblasts in the dermis. This approach can be combined with a TCA Peel in a process known as a sapphire peel. Fractional laser is excellent for acne scars and contour scars in the skin. Patients are advised to undergo skin protocols with Melarase creams before and after treatment to help reduce pigmentation. Melarase AM, Melarase PM, and Melapads can seriously improve surface sun damage and UV related pigmentation. After the laser, we expect redness for a few weeks as the skin improves. PRP and Hydrafacial enzyme facials can further improve skin quality after fractional co2.

Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

For unique cases where a variety of modalities could be used to treat the condition, I would suggest an in person or virtual consultation to develop a custom and effective treatment plan. It is difficult to precisely define the best option without collecting the same information. I suggest reaching out to an expert for a consultation with surgical and non-surgical methods to get a comprehensive option. Best, Dr. Emer.

CO2 laser and Morpheus8 treatment can both be done at different settings, which would determine the depth of the treatment. The deeper the treatment, the longer the recovery in most cases. It could be possible to have a monthly CO2 laser treatment if the settings were not too deep. The same could be said for Morpheus8. If a really deep treatment were done, it could take longer than a month to heal, so monthly treatment would not be recommended in this case.

HI, CO2 is quite an aggressive treatment that works by stimulating collagen by creating micro injuries when it reacts with water in the tissue. The body heals over time naturally. Once the new collagen building gets into full flow, we know that gently stimulating in new growth phase we can prolong that treatment. Maintenance methods that can be used on a 6-8 week basis to maintain the results of the more aggressive treatment would include mild chemical peels to keep the skin rejuvenation and cell turnover going, or micro-needling with the addition of nutrient serums. Using your own platelets and growth factors (PRP) are very effective too, with very little downtime. Good skin care and sun protection will help. With skin, less is more. If you keep harshly damaging the skin, there is risk of introducing too much heat or trauma and stimulating the wrong type of collagen as your practitioner rightly advises. Also more aggressive treatments can cause sun damage to be more aggressive, effectively undoing all the good work.