I had Pulse Dye Laser for Scars. How many treatments are normally required to make scar go white ?

Scars can be tricky. Scars that are treated within the first year are usually always easier to treat, so it depends on how old the scar is. But in general any scar that is treated with laser (PDL) will do better than no treatment at all. PDL (pulse dye laser) is an appropriate laser to use for red scars.

The pulsed dye laser is the best laser for red scars. That said, it may take many sessions, depending on the cause of your redness and hypervascularity. 

 

Raffy Karamanoukian, MD FACS

Los Angeles, CA

The PDL laser is effective in reducing erythema (redness) of scars. It may take a few treatments before the desired outcome is achieved, sometimes more than three. Increasing the energy levels with each treatment, as tolerated, may help to achieve maximum benefit. Injection of a scar with intralesional steriods is used to induce atrophy of a thickened or hypertrophic scar.

In my experience you should have noticed some improvement after 3 PDL treatments.  Scars that are thickened and red respond best initially to intralesional (injected) steroid.  It can take 3-4 steroid injections to maximally thin out a scar.  This usually doesn't address the redness very much, so I often follow this up with a series of PDL treatments.  I hope this helps.