I had horrible acne in high school which left scars on my cheeks and its been the one thing that I've always tried to "make better." I was always trying the latest makeup that promised ultimate coverage or a new cream that swears will lighten red marks and acne scarring. Nothing worked. About five years ago I started going to a MedSpa on a regular basis to recieve Micros, once a month right after my period. It honestly helped the overall look and feel of my skin but it wasn't enough, I really wanted to get to the point where I wasn't always trying to cover my face with my hair or with "pounds" of makeup. Honestly, everyone has one thing that drives them insane about themselves, mine was my skin and how horrible I felt about my scars. I felt that everyone was always looking at them while people who knew me would always say, "I don't see anything!" It was difficult to believe them since they 're supposed to say things like that, afterall, they are my friends and family! Well, about a 1.5 years ago I decided to try a series of laser treaments but wasn't told the truth about what would happen post treatment, holy cow! It was horrible! I had nasty white bumps all over my face and no one warned me to take time off work to recover from such an intense treatment. I went through three total laser treatments and didn't really feel that I saw the results I was expecting for the $2,000 I spent.
On Valentine's day 2009 I had a morning appointment for my monthly micro with Ivana and she mentioned the green peel as I was, once again, voicing my frustrations with my scars. I'm now on recovery day two and thought I would capture exactly whats happend so far.
Day of appt: My appt was at 9am on Friday and boy was I in for a surprise, in all my research I don't think anyone really captured what to expect. Ivana shared the gory details while she was prepping for the treatment and said that we've come this far and it shouldn't be that bad, lets try one and see how you do. It was a little rough in the beginning with the green plant based "scrub" applied to my face and intense rubbing, it really felt like sharp little pieces of glass were being rubbed on my face. Ivana said typical time for first time peels is about five minutes of rubbing. I made it six, not bad! I wanted to go seven as Ivana said it should be my goal but I really couldn't take it any longer after six, so we stopped. She then applied a cool cloth to my face and poured some stuff, a mixture of something (it felt like water) to the cloth. Since my face was about 100 degrees, it felt really nice! I then had that on for about 20 mintutes. When Ivana returned to get me cleaned up, she removed the cloth and had to clean off my face and get rid of any leftover green mixture. It was slightly painful, it felt like someone was poking my face with tiny needles. However, I know it doesnt sound pleasant but if the results of this treatment are as everyone says they will be, it was well worth it. She then had to rub in the three am/pm lotions and that wasn't fun either, pretty painful (in the grand scheme of things, there are far more painful things) but it was over pretty quickly. I had the day off work and jumped in a cab and went home for the day. My skin was raw and super red, I'll post photos after the five days so you get an idea of how things progressed each day. As promised by Ivana, around 5ish that evening, I began to feel a little better but sleeping last night was tough. I sleep on my side and I couldn't due to my face feeling like it was being poked by needles. I'm pretty tired and will probably sleep better tonight.
Day two: I wasn't nearly as red this morning and even took a shower, but was SUPER careful about not getting my face wet, I managed. My face felt really tight and just about an hour ago 10pm I started to peel, not bad but right around my laugh lines. I'm still slightly sensitive but I'm hoping that continues to diminish over time (as in tomorrow, because its slightly obnoxious). I'm about to head to bed and will share more details about what I look and feel like tomorrow.
Good luck to anyone out there dealing with the same or similar issues as I, and let me know if you have any questions.
