How much downtime can I expect with SmartXide?

Question

I'm thinking of having SmartXide to address severe sun damage, facial wrinkles, enlarged pores, and rough skin texture. How much downtime can I expect with SmartXide? I cannot afford a lot of downtime, and someone told me SmartXide downtime is not as long as that from laser CO2 treatments.

Jon E. Mendelsohn, MD, FACS · Answer

The SmartXIDE DOT Laser has been a wonderful devise for facial rejuvenation.  It treats many pathologies of the skin quite well.  It allows our patients to have a great treatment to improve sun damage, brown spots, hyperpigmentation, acne, acne scars, rhytids, wrinkles, lower eyelid lines, crepy skin and many other skin conditions.

	Benefits:

	1.  Topical anesthesia vs IV sedation/general anesthesia (reducing risk)
	
	2.  40% less downtime versus comprable skin peel

	3.  Minimal discomfort (2 hours of sunburn-type feeling)

	4.  One pass - One Treatment versus Fraxel requiring 3-5 sessions

	5.  We can treat "off-facial" areas such as the neck, chest, hands, back and virtually every body part.

	With regard to your specific question however, the devise is extremely versatile, so that if you have deep wrinkles, the treatment performed will be more aggressive and therefore you may have  more recovery.  The typical patient is able to wear makeup between the 3-4th day after the peel.

Raffy Karamanoukian, MD, FACS · Answer

Smartxide fractional co2 laser in my Santa Monica practice can achieve outstanding results. Downtime varies depending on the depth of treatment and the type of skin you have. On average, the initial phase of healing and recovery is about 3 to 5 days. There is some residual redness that lasts for weeks, but can be camouflaged and covered with basic foundation. I use the Melaquin AM and Melaquin PM system post fractional co2 to reduce the time to recovery and balance the skin after treatment.

Ben Behnam, MD · Answer

As with any lasers, the harder you treat, the more downtime you will have. The fractional CO2 laser definitely has less downtime compared to the traditional non-fractional CO2 laser. The downtime depends on the settings, such as the Energy and thermal energy. You can get a mild treatment and you will just have a downtime limited to 2-3 days however the result is not going to be impressive either. And that is true with any laser. Typically, with the SmartXide laser, with a moderate to severe treatment settings, you will have swelling and redness for about 4 days and by day #5, you will just have a sunburn redness. All of my patients go back to work by day #5. The redness might persist a little bit, depending on your skin. You can do prednisone for few days and this will reduce the swelling and redness as well. Having used the various fractional CO2 lasers, I do admit that the SmartXide is less painful than the other fractional CO2 lasers. Hope it helps.

Michael R. Whetstone, MD (retired) · Answer

As with most treatments the recovery is determined by a combination of factors.
1. Condition being treated 
2. Patient skin type
3. Patient compliance
All of these will make a difference for the patients recovery, on average 3 days are typical for heavy "stay at home" downtime.

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