Reviews you can trust, from real people like you.
How it works
- Our highly-trained Review Moderation team evaluates all reviews before they're published to ensure they're written by people like you and not a member of a doctor's office.
- This multi-step process takes up to 24 hours from review submission to publication.
- Doctors can't pay to have reviews removed or hidden.
- Reviews are only removed at the reviewer's request or if they violate our Terms of Service.
If you have questions or believe we should re-evaluate a published review, let us know.
Sort by:
*Treatment results may vary
Profractional and MLP on neck/chest after MLP on face
I just wanted to give everyone an idea of my recovery since I know everyone is different. Also, I can find a lot of reviews on the face but hardly any comparing the recovery of the face to the chest and/or neck.
I'm 49 and have good skin (never smoke and regular use of SPF) but still had stubborn areas of pigmentation. Also the texture was poor in my opinion. I chose this dermatologist because she is the only one I could find where the DOCTOR performs the laser procedures and not nurses/aestheticians or whatever. About 7 weeks ago, I went to her and had a deep micro laser peel on just the face. I told her to be "as aggressive as was safely possible". It was expensive and I was only going to do this once. Well she was and that recovery was a bit*ch! About 4 days of redness, swelling, oozing, etc. Taking care of my skin was a round the clock job and I had to take Tylenol regularly and also do ice water/vinegar compresses. But it turned out beautifully. A few days ago, I went back to have a micro laser peel PLUS pro fractional laser on my neck and chest. I decided not to do profractional on my face since I knew she could could go much deeper and be more aggressive with the micro laser peel on my face and I didn't feel the additional laser was needed (and it was much more expensive).
The procedure itself went more quickly and about the same level of discomfort. I didn't think the numbing cream worked as well though and I felt the "zaps" more acutely. But nothing I couldn't handle. It's directly after the procedure that is awful. Basically your face feels like it's on FIRE. The assistant came at me with Cerave after the procedure to put on my face and I told her no way. Get me some gloves and tongue depressor and I'll put it on myself. I remembered how she put it on after the face laser and she was not gentle. It was difficult because Cerave doesn't spread well and it hurts like hell to apply any pressure to get it to adhere to your skin which feels like raw hamburger with molten lava poured on top. Anyway, I got it on after about 15 minutes and headed home. Like last time, the burning subsided after a couple of hours. Much less pinpoint bleeding this time than the face. One big difference I've noticed using the profractional is the horrible ITCHING. this didn't happen with just the MLP. It's not even itching...it feels like sudden "zings" of pain on my skin and touching just makes it worse. You can't go as deep on neck/chest as you can the face so I expect the recovery to be quicker. I found it less painful to wash my skin this morning than I did at this point of recovery of face MLP. One thing no one ever seems to talk about is with both procedures there is an AWFUL smell. It's like a dead animal, sickly sweet, open wound smell. If you're a nurse you know what I mean. I know it's the necrotic tissue sloughing off and it is nasty. I'll be glad when I'm past it.
As with my face MLP, the doc greatly underestimates the pain/discomfort and time to recovery. She said I should be off the aquaphor and using plain moisturizer today. Not even close....maybe in a couple more days. It is still uncomfortable, red, burning and itching. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a turnaround.
I'm 49 and have good skin (never smoke and regular use of SPF) but still had stubborn areas of pigmentation. Also the texture was poor in my opinion. I chose this dermatologist because she is the only one I could find where the DOCTOR performs the laser procedures and not nurses/aestheticians or whatever. About 7 weeks ago, I went to her and had a deep micro laser peel on just the face. I told her to be "as aggressive as was safely possible". It was expensive and I was only going to do this once. Well she was and that recovery was a bit*ch! About 4 days of redness, swelling, oozing, etc. Taking care of my skin was a round the clock job and I had to take Tylenol regularly and also do ice water/vinegar compresses. But it turned out beautifully. A few days ago, I went back to have a micro laser peel PLUS pro fractional laser on my neck and chest. I decided not to do profractional on my face since I knew she could could go much deeper and be more aggressive with the micro laser peel on my face and I didn't feel the additional laser was needed (and it was much more expensive).
The procedure itself went more quickly and about the same level of discomfort. I didn't think the numbing cream worked as well though and I felt the "zaps" more acutely. But nothing I couldn't handle. It's directly after the procedure that is awful. Basically your face feels like it's on FIRE. The assistant came at me with Cerave after the procedure to put on my face and I told her no way. Get me some gloves and tongue depressor and I'll put it on myself. I remembered how she put it on after the face laser and she was not gentle. It was difficult because Cerave doesn't spread well and it hurts like hell to apply any pressure to get it to adhere to your skin which feels like raw hamburger with molten lava poured on top. Anyway, I got it on after about 15 minutes and headed home. Like last time, the burning subsided after a couple of hours. Much less pinpoint bleeding this time than the face. One big difference I've noticed using the profractional is the horrible ITCHING. this didn't happen with just the MLP. It's not even itching...it feels like sudden "zings" of pain on my skin and touching just makes it worse. You can't go as deep on neck/chest as you can the face so I expect the recovery to be quicker. I found it less painful to wash my skin this morning than I did at this point of recovery of face MLP. One thing no one ever seems to talk about is with both procedures there is an AWFUL smell. It's like a dead animal, sickly sweet, open wound smell. If you're a nurse you know what I mean. I know it's the necrotic tissue sloughing off and it is nasty. I'll be glad when I'm past it.
As with my face MLP, the doc greatly underestimates the pain/discomfort and time to recovery. She said I should be off the aquaphor and using plain moisturizer today. Not even close....maybe in a couple more days. It is still uncomfortable, red, burning and itching. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a turnaround.
Provider Review
