45 minutes ago, LivingWithFaith said:

I mainly hear about it with Co2, but is it a common thing with erbium?

 

The more horror stories I hear about lasers, the more I just want to try to spot treat just the worse scars and leave healthy skin alone.

Any device that's capable of generatingheat that can melt the fat can cause fat loss. I've researched this as I had a fat loss scare earlier. Due to the technology itself (some control the heat distribution better than others)rfm devices are supposed to be safer than erbium lasers which in turn are supposed to be safer than co2 ablative. However, safety comes at the price of less results as the co2 ablative remains the gold standard, the most potent tool in scar management. In my opinion you can get a test patch of Erbium on your worst scars, you have more or less nothing to lose there. But make sure you discuss settings with the practitioner in advance( preferably at a seperate consultation not on the same day )so that you get the optimalsettings in terms of risk benefit. The problem I see is that the doctor might view the test patch onthe scars as treatment already and want to charge you a lot. They usually do test patches on the side of the forehead or some other less conspicuous place just to test how your skin can bear the laser/ the chosen settings.

Ahh and by settings I mean needle /penetration length as well as energy settings. 1.) Dr needs to stay withinthe safe range of the dermis not go into the fat layer of the skin. 2) The energy should be controlled not to cause too much injury that it affects the fat layer indirectly

17 hours ago, JPK said:

Any device that's capable of generatingheat that can melt the fat can cause fat loss. I've researched this as I had a fat loss scare earlier. Due to the technology itself (some control the heat distribution better than others)rfm devices are supposed to be safer than erbium lasers which in turn are supposed to be safer than co2 ablative. However, safety comes at the price of less results as the co2 ablative remains the gold standard, the most potent tool in scar management. In my opinion you can get a test patch of Erbium on your worst scars, you have more or less nothing to lose there. But make sure you discuss settings with the practitioner in advance( preferably at a seperate consultation not on the same day )so that you get the optimalsettings in terms of risk benefit. The problem I see is that the doctor might view the test patch onthe scars as treatment already and want to charge you a lot. They usually do test patches on the side of the forehead or some other less conspicuous place just to test how your skin can bear the laser/ the chosen settings.

You mentioned you had a scare. How did you determine that you had no fat loss? Is up to 2.5 safe?

41 minutes ago, LivingWithFaith said:

You mentioned you had a scare. How did you determine that you had no fat loss? Is up to 2.5 safe?

I was mostly concerned about an area on my right cheek where much energy was fired and there I had terrible hyper and now new scar. The skin there did feel much softer than before and thishasn't changed. Also people close to me asked if I had lost weight, looking less plump in the face which kind of freaked me out. I am still not 100% I don't have any fat loss but my face doesn't seem hollow as it should be with fat loss.

Yes 2,5mm is generally safe if you have normally thick skin.

That's kind of the mark. Beyond 2,5 mm there's risk.