Be Prepared for Recovery After Treatment - Maple Grove, MN

My background: I am 37 years old, however a lot of people commented that I don't look my age. Some people thought that I was around 30 years old. I attribute it to the fact that I never used tanning beds, never smoked and I started using anti-aging creams since I was 25 (the first time I was not carded in a bar :)).

Nevertheless, I did have couple of things I needed to take care of. I had enlarged (a lot) pores on my nose, which would get clogged the week after extraction treatment I do every month. I also started to form fine lines around my eyes and a smile line on each side of my mouth. Those were very fine lines. In addition, I had freckles from my early childhood. Other than that, I had pretty good skin - no lines on my forehead or anywhere else.

 I had combined microdemobrasion/IPL/Profractional Treatment on March 4th. The cost above is the total for the entire treatment (they are running special for this combination).

I was pretty scared and I asked a lot of questions. The technician who did my treatment told me that the only person she burned was herself and it was on purpose because she wanted to know how it feels on both ends - kind of how the electrologist learns to do electrolysis. We also talked about my concerns of losing pigment after profractional - this happens if the laser goes too deep. We agreed that it is better to undertreat than to overtreat and have that side effect.

The IPL treatment was somewhat painful - like a rubber band hitting on your skin - similar to laser hair removal pain. It was very quick though.

Before I had profractional, the very strong numbing cream was applied to my face. Because of that, the laser treatment was not painful at all.

After each treatment the tech showed to me what I looked like in the mirror. So after profractional I noticed that she did not do much under my eyes. She told me it was because I was so worried about all the side effects that she wanted to go easy on me. Because one of the reasons I wanted to do profractional were lines under my eyes I asked her to go a little bit higher. She warned me that the numbing cream might have wore off somewhat and I might feel some pain, but I told her to go ahead. She did what I asked and I don't think it was painful at all.

My treatment on the face was 100 microns and 50 around the eyes.

Anyway, after the procedure I spot bled and I looked horrible for the fist 24 hours before I washed all that blood away. I followed all the post-treatment instructions. I've been told that recovery time is 2-3 days, however on day 4 I still had grid lines all over my face, so I panicked and emailed the center about my concerns.

The technician called me and said that she thinks I am just a very slow healer. She said that she will mail me elta cream because I might need more moisture in my skin than what I get from the moisturizer.

On day 5 some of my grid marks went away and I realized that I panicked a day too soon. The grid marks are completely gone today - day 10.

These are the improvements I have so far:

1. Much lighter skin complexion. My freckles did not completely go away, but they are much lighter. This is effect of IPL.

2. Smaller pores on my nose. They are still larger then what I would prefer, but smaller than before.

3. Smoother skin with less fine lines. The lines did not completely go away, but the skin is much smoother.

I was told in advance that the first treatment will not take care of everything and I will need one or two more. I think I will repeat one more combo in couple of weeks and then will decide if I need more treatments.

My husband commented that he sees a lot of improvement and he might consider this treatment for himself.

More things to note:

Until day 6 I could not put make up on - it did not stay on and I looked worse with make up than without.

I could barely sleep the first night, because I was trying to sleep while propped up on the bed and it was very uncomfortable.