Update on Berns triplets

You may have heard about these girls earlier this year. They suffered serious burn scars on their face from a house fire that they survived as toddlers. They appeared on the Today Show as part of a series where they are following their progress with a new laser being used to treat their burn scars. Here's the article detailing their status and success with the treatment.




New treatment improving burned triplets’ scars
After months of innovative laser technique, more confidence and mobility

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:08 a.m. ET, Fri., Nov . 6, 2009

The three young women glowed like the fashion models they could be, walking advertisements for a new treatment for burn victims that is being hailed as a medical miracle.

Identical triplets Trae, Jordan and Chandra Berns, 22, had first visited TODAY’s New York studios last May to talk about the pioneering laser treatment that had begun to erase scars that they had carried for 20 years. Friday, they came back to show the remarkable healing they’ve experienced since undergoing several more treatments.

“Over the past few months, it’s pretty much a gradual improvement,” Chandra told TODAY’s Matt Lauer. “Our skin has gotten smoother. Our scars have gotten a lot smoother.”

Jordan, who had lived with limited mobility in her left arm because of scar tissue around her elbow, said, “It’s helped a lot.”

As the scars that covered up to 30 percent of their bodies have been lasered away, Trae said the sisters no longer self-consciously cover their damaged skin.

“We gained a lot more self-confidence than we had before,” Trae said.

Scarred by tragedy
The Berns triplets were just 17 months old when they were trapped in a fire in their Texas home that killed their mother. The little girls spent a long time in the hospital before being released to an extensive series of painful surgeries and skin grafts.

Despite their burns and the compressing bandages they had to wear, their childhood was remarkably normal

“When we were growing up, we didn’t notice that we had burns. We were regular children. We went out. The people that we grew up with, all the children, they pretty much knew what happened, and everybody pretty much accepted it,” Chandra told Lauer in May.

It was only when they got to high school and met new people that they were made acutely aware of their disfigurement by other children who pointed at them and called them vicious names.By the time they all went off to college, they thought they would have to live with their scars forever.

A new approach
Then the sisters heard about a pioneering laser treatment being used by Dr. Jill Waibel, a cosmetic surgeon in Palm Beach, Fla. The three drove from their Texas home to Florida to see if Waibel could help them. When Waibel met the three young women, she and Lumenis, the manufacturer of the laser, agreed to treat them free of charge.

After undergoing two rounds of treatments, the sisters showed off the results on TODAY. After two more rounds, they came back Friday with Waibel and NBC’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, to show off faces that now show virtually no visible signs of scarring.

Waibel said she’s treated hundreds of burn victims in addition to the Berns sisters. “These are typical results,” she said. “For burn patients, there’s great improvement, and we’re still studying it and learning more.”

“This is going to change the way we treat all kinds of things,” Snyderman predicted, from acne scars to wrinkles to ordinary scars and burns. “These guys are proof of the fact that this works.”

The triplets said that the treatment stings, but not badly. After two weeks, the skin peels like a sunburn. Over the course of months, new tissue grows, smoothing contours and evening colors.

The Bernses said they’ve had four treatments and will be having two more. Their skin will never be perfect, but it is dramatically improved.

Cheaper than surgery
The big benefit of the treatment, Waibel said, is that it costs from $500 to a couple of thousand for a single treatment. “A fraction of what surgery costs,” she said, “and better results.”

The treatment, called an ultrapulse fractional ablative laser, consists of two separate lasers. The first shoots tiny beams that penetrate less than a millimeter into the scar tissue, heating it to the boiling point, vaporizing it, and allowing healthy tissue and collagen to fill in the microscopic gaps created by the laser. The second laser flattens and evens out the texture and coloring of the remaining scar tissue.

The lasers were developed to treat serious acne scars, but Waibel has pioneered using them to treat burn victims. She said that doctors are not sure exactly how the lasers work to destroy scar tissue, but there is no arguing with the results.

Until the laser treatment came into use, burn victims had to live with often-serious scarring. In addition to disfiguring the victims, scar tissue could also seriously restrict movement. The laser not only erases much of the scarring, it also returns the elasticity to damaged skin.

Hope for others
Since appearing on TODAY, Waibel has been invited to travel the nation and the world to educate other doctors in use of the laser.

The TODAY appearance also allowed the Berns sisters to start a foundation, Three for Hope, to help other burn victims get the treatments. Helped by donations sent by TODAY viewers, the foundation has already assisted its first patient, the sisters said.

The foundation is headquartered in San Antonio. Its mission statement reads: “To empower and inspire other burn survivors to get past the tragedy in their lives and become the best people they can be. We will be providing reinforcement, hope, education, rehabilitation, treatment, and financial resources and support to survivors and their families.”


Here's a link to the original article with a video of their appearance on the Today show:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33665429/ns/...alth/?GT1=43001

ECO2 Laser

So, I'm going to be going for a resurfacing treatment in the coming months and I've been doing some research to decide on what I'm going to go with. Anyway, I came across this article and they mentioned this laser called ECO2. It's supposed to be the latest in fractional lasers and reaches a depth of up to 2.4mm, deeper than anything else on the market. I'm wondering if anyone has heard anything about it. Because I haven't read anything about it on this board.

Depth of various resurfacing treatments

i am in the process of treating of my scars and although I have gotten satisfactory results through dermal grafts, my doc recommends a resurfacing treatment at the end to take care of superficial scarring. He recommended a profractional laser treatment, but I have been doing some research of my own due to hearing about the success some people have achieved with the new Fraxel Repair and apparently it goes much deeper than the other lasers. I thought it was comparable to Deep FX, but according to an L.A. plastic surgeon on Realself, Repair reaches up to a depth of 1.6mm, while the Deep FX reaches up to 0.6 mm. That seems like a pretty significant difference to me. For the record, Sciton profractional supposedly reaches a depth of 1.5mm. I still haven't decided what resurfacing treatment I'm going to go with though. I'm still doing my research. For the record, my scars are at the surface at this point and not visible in direct light. There's just the damn scar tissue that causes the look of uneven texture that I am hoping the resurfacing will take care of. I also have very fair skin, so he thinks that an ablative laser will be ok. Anyway, I just thought I would share because there is a lot of confusion about the latest resurfacing lasers.

Mickey Rourke

I went to see the movie, The Wrestler, this afternoon and I couldn't help but think about what Mickey Rourke had done to his face. He has had his lips done and probably other plastic surgery, but he also has scarring, but I don't think they're acne scars, but rather scarring as a result of a bad CO2. Not to mention the texture of his skin looked unnatural, which I think might be a risk with CO2 as well. Anyone who has seen the movie or any recent films with him care to speculate as to what he had done.

Dermadoctor faux filment

Well, I'm sure this product has been discussed in the past, but I thought I would give my thoughts anyway. With absolutely no expectations, I decided to pick this stuff up tonight at Sephora. Lately, I've been feeling really down and desperate about my acne scarring (probably been spending too much time around this forum), so I figured what the hell. It couldn't hurt. So, I was eager to try it on. And what do you know. It's not totally worthless. It did fill in my scars a bit. I mean, it's not enough to dissuade me from getting laser resurfacing or something more aggressive in the future, but I think I'll stick with it for the time being. So, if you guys haven't tried it, perhaps you should give it a shot. I mean it's expensive, but Sephora has a good return policy. So, if you don't think it's worth it you can always return it with a receipt and get your money back.