The pain was that excruishiating that it brought me to tears. I also starting uncontrollably shaking as the pain was so unbearable. My teeth were also sore for a week late from all the clenching i did. The derm that was doing it said that some people have a low tolerance to pain whilst others dont. Maybe I am one of them, who knows. All i know is it hurt like hell and burned like my face was on fire for the next 5 hours. To give a description of what the procedure felt like would be: imagine if you were red raw sunburnt all over your face and someone with long finger nails sratched over your face really really hard, then went over that same spot EIGHT TIMES (8 passes).

Yes, I also felt that Fraxel is extremely painful. Reliant makes it sound like it is bearable with the numbing cream which is false. I had a blanket over me and I shook as well. The laser itself is hot but your body becomes cold and jerks. I guess one is trying to brace themself for the next swipe of the laser. To me the laser felt like a 1000 bee stings each time it was dragged across my face. VERY painful and although I didnt cry I let the nurse know it hurt like hell til the end. My eyes teared on their own. The jaw line, upper lip and forhead was the most sensitive and the nose the least.

I was disoriented when I stood up after the 20 min. procedure and had to wash my face and apply gunk. Then I felt burnt for 2 hrs afterwards and then the burn sensation went away 100%. I looked puffy and real red for 2 complete days. Today is day 3 and the swelling is gone with light redness with peeling. The peeling is happening on my chin and nose. Everywhere else feels rough and you can see where the laser went with its dotted flesh color pattern. I do not have brown dots others have mentioned. I am foruntate to stay out of the public til this healing process goes on. I dont see how others can venture out. Redness can be covered but the peeling is unlike a traditional sunburn as its a grainy texture and hard to moisturize. I dont wear make-up and Im sure it will just make it look worse if I did.

I dont see ANY improvement at all. Really cant after 1 anyhow. Im not impressed with those photos floating around from Reliant and MD's practices showing acne scarring improvement. It seems to work best for sun damage spots. But every doc. I visited tell me thats the best option for me and all they would perform on me. So Im gonna complete a session of them to see what happens.

Three days after your first treatment and you don't see ANY improvement?

Three days after your first treatment and you don't see ANY improvement? 😯

Now I see that u are going at your skin with high settings. Has this made any difference as far as improvment? I was under the impression that 70 mjs settings are better.

Three days after your first treatment and you don't see ANY improvement? 😯

You are implying as tho its unheard of. Most ppl aren't going to see improvment after one tx. and with that just 3 days. All the literature and even my doc says so. It takes a minimum of 3 tx.

Erm..... I think tabula-rasa was being sarcastic

Erm..... I think tabula-rasa was being sarcastic

Smart asses everywhere you go :rolleyes:

Now I see that u are going at your skin with high settings. Has this made any difference as far as improvment? I was under the impression that 70 mjs settings are better.

For acne scarring I think you want to as high mJ as you can without complication as soon as possible in your sessions. The defects from acne scars are deep and fibroplasts for collagen neogenesis lie in the deep dermis. The fractional coverage provides a much higher factor of safety than total resurfacing and you can monitor your response to each previous session. Problems seem to occur almost exclusively in post-treatment complications, and perhaps Asian skin. I predict the depth of treatment in future models will be greater still.

Hi all,

I've been reading this forum over the past few months and this is my first posting. I am ten days past my fourth fraxel, and thought I would talk a little bit on my experience and result so far.

My first two sessions were done at 20 MJ, cos the MD wanted to start slow and gauge the reaction. On a scale of 1 to 10 ( 1 being the least painful), I rated the pain level at about 2. This is probably close to what Radiant put on their marketing stuff; that the pain is akin to an ant's bite. Looking at my high tolerence to pain, my MD went to a higher session of 50 MJ on my third session. For this session, I could feel the pain. I rated it at 5 out of ten in the feedback form. As such, my MD went REALLY aggressive on my fourth session, using a setting of 60MJ at level 12, which according to him, had seldom been done. Now this session I could really feel the pain. There was even a faint smell of burning flesh which I had not encountered in the previous sessions. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away. Let's just say I would rate this session at 8 out of ten. Maybe I have high pain tolerence, but I wouldn't recommended this setting to anyone unless you are pretty sure u can withstand ALOT of pain.

My swelling has gone down after ten days, and so far the result has been a little bit inconsistent. On some days, I felt like the scars have softened, while on others days they seems to have gone worse. What I seem to notice is that visible improvement seems to follow on days when a have a good night rest, and vive versa.

I noticed that many of the posts have singularly focused on the intensity of the treatment, with insufficient focus given to other contributing factors. For example, I understand that smoking inhibit or retard the recovery process, as it destroy Vitamin C and also adversely affect the carriage of oxygen through the body. As I am a smoker, I try to limit the damage by cutting down smoking, as well as taking in copious amount of Vit C and other essential nutrients (as recommended in the other forum pages). It would be helpful if users posting results of the Fraxel treatment include details such as 1) smoking history 2) pre and post nutritional support 3) hours of sleep (average) and 4) sun exposure. The reason is because my personel experience seems to indicate that all these factors play a part in the scar recovery process.

To sum it all up, I would reckon my improvement so far at 20% to 25%, perhaps a little bit less than what I was expecting. Nonetheless, I am happy that I started on this course, and given the possibility that my skin would continue to improve over the coming months, I think it is quite worth the pain (and the money) :>)

Hi all,

I've been reading this forum over the past few months and this is my first posting. I am ten days past my fourth fraxel, and thought I would talk a little bit on my experience and result so far.

My first two sessions were done at 20 MJ, cos the MD wanted to start slow and gauge the reaction. On a scale of 1 to 10 ( 1 being the least painful), I rated the pain level at about 2. This is probably close to what Radiant put on their marketing stuff; that the pain is akin to an ant's bite. Looking at my high tolerence to pain, my MD went to a higher session of 50 MJ on my third session. For this session, I could feel the pain. I rated it at 5 out of ten in the feedback form. As such, my MD went REALLY aggressive on my fourth session, using a setting of 60MJ at level 12, which according to him, had seldom been done. Now this session I could really feel the pain. There was even a faint smell of burning flesh which I had not encountered in the previous sessions. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away. Let's just say I would rate this session at 8 out of ten. Maybe I have high pain tolerence, but I wouldn't recommended this setting to anyone unless you are pretty sure u can withstand ALOT of pain.

My swelling has gone down after ten days, and so far the result has been a little bit inconsistent. On some days, I felt like the scars have softened, while on others days they seems to have gone worse. What I seem to notice is that visible improvement seems to follow on days when a have a good night rest, and vive versa.

I noticed that many of the posts have singularly focused on the intensity of the treatment, with insufficient focus given to other contributing factors. For example, I understand that smoking inhibit or retard the recovery process, as it destroy Vitamin C and also adversely affect the carriage of oxygen through the body. As I am a smoker, I try to limit the damage by cutting down smoking, as well as taking in copious amount of Vit C and other essential nutrients (as recommended in the other forum pages). It would be helpful if users posting results of the Fraxel treatment include details such as 1) smoking history 2) pre and post nutritional support 3) hours of sleep (average) and 4) sun exposure. The reason is because my personel experience seems to indicate that all these factors play a part in the scar recovery process.

To sum it all up, I would reckon my improvement so far at 20% to 25%, perhaps a little bit less than what I was expecting. Nonetheless, I am happy that I started on this course, and given the possibility that my skin would continue to improve over the coming months, I think it is quite worth the pain (and the money) :>)

I'm about a month past my 6th fraxel and have noticed my skin improving a lot after about 2 weeks. I think you really do have to wait awhile before you can judge results after your last fraxel. So it is possible that 20-25% could turn into 35-40% improvement.

Hi all,

I've been reading this forum over the past few months and this is my first posting. I am ten days past my fourth fraxel, and thought I would talk a little bit on my experience and result so far.

My first two sessions were done at 20 MJ, cos the MD wanted to start slow and gauge the reaction. On a scale of 1 to 10 ( 1 being the least painful), I rated the pain level at about 2. This is probably close to what Radiant put on their marketing stuff; that the pain is akin to an ant's bite. Looking at my high tolerence to pain, my MD went to a higher session of 50 MJ on my third session. For this session, I could feel the pain. I rated it at 5 out of ten in the feedback form. As such, my MD went REALLY aggressive on my fourth session, using a setting of 60MJ at level 12, which according to him, had seldom been done. Now this session I could really feel the pain. There was even a faint smell of burning flesh which I had not encountered in the previous sessions. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away. Let's just say I would rate this session at 8 out of ten. Maybe I have high pain tolerence, but I wouldn't recommended this setting to anyone unless you are pretty sure u can withstand ALOT of pain.

My swelling has gone down after ten days, and so far the result has been a little bit inconsistent. On some days, I felt like the scars have softened, while on others days they seems to have gone worse. What I seem to notice is that visible improvement seems to follow on days when a have a good night rest, and vive versa.

I noticed that many of the posts have singularly focused on the intensity of the treatment, with insufficient focus given to other contributing factors. For example, I understand that smoking inhibit or retard the recovery process, as it destroy Vitamin C and also adversely affect the carriage of oxygen through the body. As I am a smoker, I try to limit the damage by cutting down smoking, as well as taking in copious amount of Vit C and other essential nutrients (as recommended in the other forum pages). It would be helpful if users posting results of the Fraxel treatment include details such as 1) smoking history 2) pre and post nutritional support 3) hours of sleep (average) and 4) sun exposure. The reason is because my personel experience seems to indicate that all these factors play a part in the scar recovery process.

To sum it all up, I would reckon my improvement so far at 20% to 25%, perhaps a little bit less than what I was expecting. Nonetheless, I am happy that I started on this course, and given the possibility that my skin would continue to improve over the coming months, I think it is quite worth the pain (and the money) :>)

Thank you for posting your experience and good luck with your results. I just wanted to bring up that you should try to quit smoking all together (easier said than done I understand). The thing is that when one cuts down from smoking they don't really cut down at all! Your body subconsciously tricks you into taking deeper inhales and holding the smoke longer into your lungs so you get the same amount of nicotine. You don't even notice it.

So... I've got my second Fraxel SR1500 tomorrow morning. Kind of looking forward to it but also dreading the upper lip being done. That was pretty much the most painful part of the whole procedure, the rest I actually liked the pain in a weird kind of way, as I was just so happy that something was going to be happening to the damn things. I too shook with the coldness, they said next time they wll give me a hot water bottle or something so maybe that will help. Will post an update as soon as I get home from it.

To those with deeper acne scars who feel hopeless. Please take a look at these links. Scarless healing of much more gastly wounds has taken place for over five years in animals and has been used experimentally on about 500,000 people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1965

http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/...mp;pageId=3.5.1

http://www.acell.com/

http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1646641311092.html

http://www.cookbiotech.com/index_flash.html

http://www.healthpoint.com/divisions/tm/Oa...ced%20Ulcer.pdf

http://www.healthpoint.com/divisions/tm/Oa...un%20Injury.pdf

http://www.healthpoint.com/divisions/tm/Oa...ure%20Ulcer.pdf

I would advise you all to write Reliant a quick email. Let them know that all they need to do is integrate the pig gut with treatment. Basically instead of a blue dye they should be smearing an acell gel onto the face before or right after treatment. Then have the patient reapply every few days. Or maybe just inject it into atrophic areas, then use the CO2 fraxel.

If it can regrow 2 cm of bone, collagen, skin, blood vessel, and nail on the tip of an extremity I see no reason why it would not do so for a few millimeters of collagen and skin on the face. (and if you watch the video you can see it already worked on a horse's face, and a gunshot to a human foot for that matter.)

Too bad paradigm shift and integration still takes years rather than months, but we are getting there!

One semi-positive thing from the wars in the middle east is that now the US govt is finally iinterested and funding this research. Before they didnt even take it seriously.

OK... so back from my second fraxel SR1500. 8 passes at 40mJ Wow the pain seemed to be more this time but still tolerable. The most annoying thing was the upper lip!!

Well they showed me my before pictures from the first one and there's a small improvement, maybe 5%.Hopefully I get another 5% this time! My scarring isn't really that bad, mostly superficial blotchy redmarks and a couple of icepicks...

P.S Expensive though it may be, Duac is the best thing for acne ever. Keep it in the butter conditioner of your fridge. Ciao.

wow, that acell is amazing! I emailed a link to my brother who is a medical student.

Second day after my Fraxel SR1500 and I'm getting some slight crusting or "zingers" on some areas of my face, mostly around my chin... I think they were much more aggressive this time than they were with my first one. Hopefully I come out good.

Second day after my Fraxel SR1500 and I'm getting some slight crusting or "zingers" on some areas of my face, mostly around my chin... I think they were much more aggressive this time than they were with my first one. Hopefully I come out good. 🙂

i had the same experience, and they just dried up and sloughed off.

i was looking up post and saw a gallery by the name of franky, he claims to have 80 percent, i remember his post back in the day where he used to post on the forum and was getting smoothbeam, seems like the fraxel took care of him

I don't know Delta Force. I am over 2 weeks post #4 and I can't say my pitting looks better. In fact it looks worse as the breakouts I had a few months ago that went away all left additional holes. Are some of us really doomed? My derm said it's all genetic, implying you have it for life. I am SOO depressed- noone on here has to deal with getting a big pit everytime a breakout occurs.

Although I wish everyone on here the best with Fraxel, I think many physicians have really overstated the potential benefits of the treatment.

I just subscribed to the medical journal Dermatologic Surgery to read an article from July on Fraxel and postinflammatory hyperpigmentation, which should be a heck of a lot easier to treat than atrophic acne scars, and Fraxel was only mildly effective 3 months after 5-6 treatments.

If you are in Australia or wealthy, I think you should go ahead, but anyone who's financially strapped may want to either reconsider or set their expectations low for how much improvement they'll see. Keep in mind, they have no idea yet if this device causes negative long-term (5+ years) side effects.

yeah im skeptical of such a device due to the fact there are no long term studies of this

for example lasik eye surgery, its all a risk

another example creatine, which is now found to be bad for the heart.

So... I've got my second Fraxel SR1500 tomorrow morning. Kind of looking forward to it but also dreading the upper lip being done. That was pretty much the most painful part of the whole procedure, the rest I actually liked the pain in a weird kind of way, as I was just so happy that something was going to be happening to the damn things. I too shook with the coldness, they said next time they wll give me a hot water bottle or something so maybe that will help. Will post an update as soon as I get home from it.

are they not giving you shots? i get shots across my forehead at my eyebrows and then two shots inside my mouth where the gum line connects with the upper lip. i can't feel anything on my upper lip as a result, and when they do my nose, it mostly feels ticklish.

i have heard that the upper lip is really painful without this. yikes! i feel bad for you if that's the case! 🙁

yeah im skeptical of such a device due to the fact there are no long term studies of this

for example lasik eye surgery, its all a risk

another example creatine, which is now found to be bad for the heart.

i really can't imagine there being any long-term risk with this. i mean, it's not a risk if you stab yourself with a needle. your skin just heals from it. and it's just heat. you're not putting any chemicals on your skin.

Hello Guy's, i'm new here in the comunity

I came from my doctor yesterday and she said for me to do 4 session of fraxel 1500, 10 passes with 70mJ. I posted a picture to know if in your opinion i will have a good improvement with the fraxel laser.

anyone who did the fraxel can post pictures with the before and after the sessions of fraxel?

thanks

Sorry for my bad english, i dont leave in a country with english language =P

THE PICTURES FROM MY FACE

The latest thing? Full body fraxel! I have to admit I thought about this and how much it would cost. But for $100k why not just buy your own machine?

yeah im skeptical of such a device due to the fact there are no long term studies of this

for example lasik eye surgery, its all a risk

another example creatine, which is now found to be bad for the heart.

i really can't imagine there being any long-term risk with this. i mean, it's not a risk if you stab yourself with a needle. your skin just heals from it. and it's just heat. you're not putting any chemicals on your skin.

 

I think your scarring is moderate enough that Fraxel will make some noticeable improvements. I.e., softer texture where scarring is.

Then again, I'm not a dermatologist so don't go with what I say. But I think anyone who undergoes Fraxel will see at least some improvement around the 30-60% range depending on skin. Everyone is different.