Thrilled With My Sciton Erbium Laser Treatment

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Three Months Out From Second Procedure

  • 25 Jul 2018
  • 6 months post
It's now been three months since my second, deep Erbium laser resurfacing of my perioral area and under eyes. Recovery from this procedure has definitely been a lot longer and more intense than the original microlaser peel was. As I mentioned in my previous update, I had a complication (an HPV/fever blister outbreak) that really slowed down my healing and made me look much worse a week in than I had a few days in. Aggressive drug treatment cleared up the infection, but I now believe I have a small scar under my left eye, where the worst of the blisters was. It's not horrible, but obviously it's not something I would have wanted. Even so, I feel lucky that I only ended up with one tiny scar considering how serious the infection looked. My other, right eye seems to be healing slowly as well, and I still have a fair bit of redness and a bit of a raised "line" marking where the deep resurfacing left off. Coagulation was used under my eyes for skin tightening, and much like the Co2 laser this can cause a longer healing period. I wear concealer and foundation every day to even out the skin tone, and if I have an event or something I use a green concealer first to cancel out the redness. The red tone is gradually fading, but I think it will be six months or so total before I will see anything like the final result in this area. My perioral area, which was the area I was most concerned with, has healed much faster. I still have some pinkness, and if I get hot/active/etc. red patches appear but this is getting better week by week. I only use a bit of foundation in this area daily and it's enough to cover up the red. Results in this area have been dramatic, and ALL of the deep lip lines and wrinkles I had are now gone, taking years off my face. I do still have some minor texture issues on my upper lip from skin damage in my past, and I plan on having a second deep resurfacing done in this area within the next year, but overall I am very happy with my results in the mouth area. I am a little more ambivalent about the under eyes, since I did not have much wrinkling there to begin with and because of the complications I had. Having said that, we treated the eye/cheek area with Profractional and coagulation, and it really tightened my skin a lot and did away with some early eye bags and cheek sagging. I think I am more pleased with this than I am with the actual wrinkle reduction here. I would absolutely undergo the perioral resurfacing again and definitely recommend Dr. Kim for this procedure. I plan on going back to him for a lase peel of my neck and chest as well as a lip touch-up in the next six months or so.

Pics And Update

  • 7 May 2018
  • 4 months post
It’s been 10 days since my deep laser resurfacing around my mouth and under my eyes. This time has been a much more challenging healing process than the first one. Due to an infection I still have some healing to do, and I have been breaking out from all of the heavy grease I have to wear every day. Even so, I am very please with the procedure. Every single lip line I had is gone, And my under eyes are no wrinkle free and smooth with no more bags. I would definitely do it again, though I feel I probably have another month or so before I really feel back to normal. I have a lot of redness around my mouth where he went to especially deep.

Round Two: More Challenges But More Results

  • 2 May 2018
  • 4 months post
I went back for Round Two of my laser resurfacing journey a week ago today. This time, instead of doing a microlaser peel, we did full, deep resurfacing around my mouth and under my eyes along with a lighter laser peel and Profractional with coagulation to my cheeks. This was done under oral sedation and facial nerve blocks. I am not going to lie, some of the injections were pretty uncomfortable, and I needed a lot more of them this time with the much deeper procedure. I felt almost nothing of the actual laser, and I had little pain at home due to the oral pain meds and cold water soaks I used. The next day I looked a bit rough, but weirdly not as bad as I did during my first, less aggressive treatment. I developed some pretty bad bruising on my chin from one of the nerve blocks, but that is fading well. All seemed well, and the redness was fading, but then I unfortunately developed complications. I noticed some unusual crusting under my eyes and on my lip and say what appeared to be blisters, and I immediately called the doctor and went right in. Despite being given oral anti-virals after my treatment, I have developed fever blisters on my upper lip and under both my eyes. This can be a serious complication after laser resurfacing as it can lead to scarring. Dr. Kim immediately prescribed me large doses of anti-viral drugs I have to take three times a day for the next week. He also said he felt I would likely heal without scarring, though my healing would be delayed in the affected areas. After a few doses of the meds I noticed things were improving, and this morning I look much better with the exception of the areas around my left eye. I confess that I am concerned I may end up with scarring here because the infection seems the deepest and the skin most deteriorated in this area. I am especially sad about this because my results otherwise look amazing: ALL of my under eye wrinkles are gone, and using the coagulation mode on the laser allowed him to tighten up my skin and get rid of my minor eye bags without surgery. So far as I can tell the area around my mouth looks great, too, though it's hard to know due to the irritation from the fever blisters. Right now I can't really do much but watch and wait and hope things heal normally, though I am being very diligent about applying the ointment as instructed and babying my skin. Pics to come soon when I'm able to focus and am less nervous.

Provider Review

Michael M. Kim, MD
Board Certified Facial Plastic Surgeon
2525 NW Lovejoy St., Portland, Oregon
Overall rating
  • 31 Jan 2018

I've had a great experience with Dr. Kim. Despite only being in my 30s, some overly aggressive hair removal treatments done years ago, along with sun and no longer being 22, caused me to have some pretty deep lines around my upper lip along with "pebbly" looking skin and some small pockmark-type scars. I also had the usual sun damage to my face which included fine lines and brown spots. After doing my research I was leaning towards having fractional CO2 laser, as I was told it was the "best" and that erbium would not be as good. When I met Dr. Kim (after finding him on Realself) however he explained that he used the Sciton erbium laser with great results. I am very glad I listened to him. I had a pretty deep "micro laser" peel to my whole face, with a second pass around my lips, as well as Profractional XC done only around my mouth area. This was done under oral sedation along with topical anesthetic and nerve blocks around my mouth. While not exactly my idea of fun, the procedure itself was very comfortable and, except for the 20 minutes or so right after, I had very little pain. The day after treatment my face was very red, bloody, and swollen. I scared my husband and friends a bit, but it didn't hurt, it just felt very tight and dry. I had to wash my face several times a day and apply the greasy laser balm, which got in my hair and on everything. This was the worst part for me. I looked pretty bad for several days,and then all at once I started to peel and rapidly improved. The area around my mouth took the longest to heal since we had been more aggressive here. Two weeks later and my skin looks great, mostly, though I still have residual pinkness around my mouth that is daily becoming less. My fine lines are almost all gone as are my sun spots.I am glad I chose erbium laser, since the healing time and redness are less than with CO2. My upper lip lines are not totally gone but are much improved, and my chin especially looks much, much better than it did. My husband and friends are a bit shocked in fact by how much better I look. I will almost certainly be having a second treatment in a few months, this time only around the mouth and under my eyes, for even more improvement. The possibility of this was discussed with me ahead of time. Dr. Kim was very easy to talk to, and his entire office was nothing but helpful. I am so happy I underwent this procedure and wish I had done it years ago because I wasted a lot of time using less invasive stuff with little to no result. I will definitely be back to him for more treatment and have already recommended him to a friend who was impressed with the improvements in my skin. One more thing: I have seen a lot of people on here complain about laser "grids" and "track marks." I brought this up with Dr. Kim before my procedure as being a serious concern of mine. He told me that the Profractional could be set on a "random" pattern to help keep this from happening. Sure enough, after treatment I had to look very hard to find where the Profractional had fired into my skin, and what I could see looked like isolated speckles versus a stamped grid. Two weeks later and it's 95% undetectable.