Laser wrinkle removal is the very best and most long-lasting way to effectively remove fine lines and wrinkles from your skin. However, before you rush out to book an appointment and spend over a thousand dollars, it’s important to make sure that you’re a good candidate for this procedure, and that you’re comfortable with the potential side-effects that may occur as a result of laser treatments on your skin.
Laser Skin Resurfacing Explained
After you’ve discussed your options with the doctor who’ll perform the procedure, and he or she has determined you to be a good candidate, a local anesthetic and sedative (in some cases) will be administered and the doctor will get to work.
The process involves focusing a high-intensity laser to the blemished areas of your skin. The laser zaps away the outer-most skin cells, disrupting the collagen bond of the wrinkled area and new, smoother skin is revealed.
Depending on the severity of lines or blemishes being repaired, it may take two or three sessions to peel away all the necessary layers of skin to fix the problem area.
You’ll then be given a special antibiotic moisturizing ointment to apply for several days, or weeks after the procedure is performed.
Who Makes a Good Candidate?
• People with light complexions and reasonably healthy skin tend to get the best results from this procedure.
• People with the following skin imperfections: crow’s feet, multiple fine lines, forehead lines, smile lines and vertical lines around the mouth area.
Who Doesn’t Make a Good Candidate for Laser Wrinkle Removal?
Unfortunately, the list of people who’re less likely to benefit from this procedure is much longer. Don’t be immediately deterred if you think you don’t meet the criteria. It never hurts to book a consultation with a dermatologist. They may shed more light on your situation and be able to suggest alternative procedures or products you can use to improve your complexion.
• If you’ve found yourself to be the type of person who’s very prone to scarring after minor scratches and scrapes, there’s a strong chance that the laser procedure will cause scarring in the treated area. Your doctor will question you about this several times throughout the initial consultation.
• One potential side effect of using laser treatments on the skin is that so much skin is removed a permanent whitening effect can take place on the areas that are treated. The darker your complexion, the higher the chance this will happen to you.
• If you have a connective tissue disease, such as Lupus or Sjorgen’s, the dermatologist will suggest foregoing the treatment as complications are very common with these disorders.
• Those who’ve used Accutane and other prescription acne treatments in the last year and a half often take much longer to heal in the areas that have been treated. Longer healing times have shown to result in more scarring after laser treatment, due to potential infection and blistering of the skin. The dermatologist will ask you if and when you last used these medications, to determine if you need to wait before having laser wrinkle removal performed.
• People who have naturally oily skin tend to not heal very well, and are also more prone to scarring and skin lightening as a result of laser treatments.
• Last, if you have just a few fine lines, the doctor will likely suggest you try a less-invasive procedure, with fewer potential side effects, before proceeding with laser removal treatment. Remember that laser therapy is a surgical procedure, and dermatologists take this fact very seriously!
What You Need to Know Before Booking a Consultation
First and foremost: check the dermatologist’s credentials very carefully. They should be able to provide hundreds, if not thousands of before and after photos of past patients to prove their credibility.
Make sure to scour Internet forums and review sites for anything negative that’s been written about them. It’s normal to expect that some patient’s will have left unhappy, but the overwhelming response from people should be positive.
If the doctor doesn’t have an online presence, ask them to provide reference phone numbers of 5 -10 previous patients, then call each of them and ask about their overall impression of the doctor – their staff, and the results that were achieved. This is a very common request, so if the doctor seems put out or bewildered when you ask, it’s best to move on.
If there reputation checks out, book your consultation, which is in most cases free, and let the doctor decide if laser therapy is right for you. Best of luck!
