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While reading posts, I always have the feeling that the term "passes" is used differently by different people.
So, just to be on the same page, this what is my understanding and terminology I use : when an area of skin is treated, as Fraxel tip is much smaller than the area, it is treated with multiple "scans". I have observed that people always use term passes what I call scans. So, 8-10 scans might be required to fully cover the area to be treated once and that is one pass. Regarding coverage, what I meant was Fraxel machine has saftey mechanism in terms of multiple passes as chance of overlapping is more likely with multiple passes ( though it can occur between two adjacent scans too depending on how close they are )
This doesn't make sense.
The only thing the machine stores is whether it's spitting out 150 or 250 density. It's up to the doctor to systematize his treatments so that he staggers his starting points for each treatment area at each treatment session, e.g., he might start 1 cm from the temple for the first treatment, 2 cm from the temple for the second treatment, and so on.
If the laser passes over the same spot more than once it is laying down some MTZ's over each other! Look at the microscopic photo on reliant-tech.com you will see for yourself.
But if dots are spaced randomly and control is manual, what will make sure that in say 5 treatments and coverage of 20 % per treatment, 100% area would be covered ? Machine has to correlate between the treatments. Manual control would be too erronous. Once the grid is shifted in the next treatment, it does not matter where the start point is. Also, when I am treated, my doctor does not necessarily start at the same point. Sometimes she starts with forehead first, sometimes with cheeks.
In reference to the coverage area of the MTZs referenced in the above post, there are some math errors...
"There are 1000 microns to a millimeter; ten millimeters to a centimeter. That means that a linear centimeter is 10,000 microns wide. A square centimeter therefore has an area of 100,000 microns.
At a density of 150 MTZs per sq. cm., one pass of the fraxel laser would cover 15,000 microns/sq.cm or 15 percent of the skin. At a density of 250/sq. cm the coverage of one pass is 25,000 microns/sq.cm or 25 percent of the skin."
10,000 X 10,000 is 100,000,000 microns per cm/sq, not 100,000 microns. Also, the area covered by one MTZ would be 7,854 microns/sq (pi times radius squared). If you recalculate using these figures, then 1 pass at 150MTZs is 1,178,097 microns/sq which is equivalent to 1.1% of your skin (1,178,097 / 100,000,000). 8 passes would be equivalent to a coverage area of 9.4%.
With a setting of 125 MTZ/cm, it would take 13 passes to reach 15% coverage on your skin. I was kind of a math geek in HS.
Sean..
The way you computed is very right. To be dead accurate in calculation : area of a MTZ is 7857.14 microns per sq. cm and at 125 MTZ, it is 0.98 % coverage per pass.
Well, I just got back from my 5th cheeks area treatment. Have been doing treatments about every 4 weeks. I have been taking pictures and had told a few I would send them to them, sorry for having not done that. I have decided to just wait until I am completely done so there can be some sort of a halfway accurate assessment and hopefully I can get the doctors photos since they are more clear.
I will say this about the photos though, sometimes I look at the photos and they look better, sometimes they look worst and sometimes it looks the same. Maybe it is the consistency of how I have been taking them, who knows.
Today I did get to see some of the photos the doctors office had taken pre-treatment and before my fourth treatment. The photo they had of my left cheek which was kind of scarred pores looking scars actually looked much better than I had thought it did, so I was pleased with that. They didnt have the one of my right cheek pre-treatment, so I couldnt make any comparison on that one with their photos and that is the cheek that bothers me the most. Those scars are kind of chicken pox looking, just a few in a cluster.
My scars are the result of years of digging out ingrown hairs mostly. Which I think I have finally come up with a regime to combat that, knock on wood.
They just printed out the photos, so I dont know how good they would look scanned in, I tried to get them to email them to me, but couldnt ever get a straight answer if they would. I also asked for the treatment settings for the last 3 times since I had the first 2 and couldnt really get a straight answer about that either, did get a smart ass comment from the nurse asking if I was getting my own machine.
I would say I went into this with mild scarring with realistic expectations and so far do I think I have seen 2k worth of results, 400 per treatment, probably not. But I still think this is the best out there for me, so I am not stopping and would recommend it.
I would say so far the best benefits have been improvement of overall texture and complexion. I did express my results concerned to the doctor and nurses and inturn they cranked it up, to what i dont know, but for the first time I experienced pinpoint bleeding and alot of yellow oozing for the first few hours.
I have to say I have healed up rather quickly every time and for me little pain, but I have thrown a lot at my face over the years so it is can take it, I think laser hair removal hurst much worst when I was doing that on my face.
I use a combo of emu/aloe/triceram for the first few days. I have always had the treatments on Thursday and have gone to work the next day just looking sunburn, then bronze the next day or two and by Monday look pretty much back to normal.
This time around they gave me some tubes of some Aveeno redness relief type moisturizer, which I have to say looks like it actually worked, because I look less red sooner than ever before.
I wont put a percentage on how much the improvement has been since I really dont know. The plan is to do one more full cheek area in 4 weeks and then he agreed to do some spot treatments at a reduced rate, not sure what that will be, but he wasnt willing to do that until I completed these rounds of full cheeks. I think to get it to where I want will still be a few more months of treatments, but if I can get some spots done for maybe 200-250 instead of 400 I will keep it up, just will go until the point of dimenisioning returns.
I guess to sum it up to date, still glad I did it, moderate improvement, helped with scarred pores, poc looking scars are probably improving even though tougher to tell, complexion and texture are clearer, downtime is minimal, pain is minimal and would do it all again.
I enjoyed your post and found it very informative. Thank you! Let us know how it turns out.
I thought passes refered to the doctor going over the same exact spot (usually the worse scarred parts) with the laser.
From what you're saying "passes" are really "scans" which go over the same spot and are not even overlapping?.
The reliant site says that doctors should do two "passes" over the same exact area; the first going vertical and other horizontal.
Where did the calculations with Pi and all that come in for MTZs? One MTZ does not equal 7000+ microns, that is ridiculous. That'd make a 7 millimeter hole in your skin!
yes, 7000+ microns is a big area. I guess, it just started with you mentioning MTZ of 100 micron diameter, then on that we just got carried away with math 🙂 and didn't pay much attention to what that implies. Maybe, you meant area of MTZ is 100 micron and not diameter ?
Regarding passes, what you say about horizontal / vertical is correct. What I meant by passes is what people talk about : 8-10 passes. I guess, they want to say what I call as scans. Otherwise, passing over the same area 8-10 times would be too intense ! They are scans as per my terminology. But again terminology is relative.
I thought passes refered to the doctor going over the same exact spot (usually the worse scarred parts) with the laser.
From what you're saying "passes" are really "scans" which dont go over the same spot and are not even overlapping, just covering the treated area in strokes like one paints a wall?.
The reliant site says that doctors should do two "passes" over the same exact area; the first going vertical and other horizontal. Also several posts said the doctor did multiple passes over the worst scarred area?.
Where did the calculations with Pi and all that come in for MTZs? One MTZ does not equal 7000+ microns, that is ridiculous. That'd make a 7 millimeter hole in your skin!
Tmthymllgn,
The first error in your equation was that you didn't calulate the area of one MTZ, but instead used 100 microns as the area, when this was in fact the diameter of one MTZ, huge difference; pi must be used to figure the approximate area of one MTZ. In your post (excerpt below), you stated that Reliant estimates each MTZ is 100 microns in diameter. You then stated that a setting of 150MTZs per sq/cm would cover 15,000 microns per cm/sq, but you did not use the area of the MTZ in this equation. If you multiply the 100 micron diameter by 150 MTZs per cm/sq, then, yes, you get 15,000 microns, BUT, 100 microns is the diameter of the MTZ, not the area of it. You first need to calculate the area of the MTZ based on the 100 micron diameter and then multiply that by the number of MTZs in on square centimeter to get an accurate estimate of the coverage area. So, if you use area=pi times radius(squared), this would be 3.14 X 50(squared) or approximatley 7854 microns/sq for one MTZ.
The second error in your equation was in calculation of the area of a centimeter, you stated "a linear centimeter is 10,000 microns wide. A square centimeter therefore has an area of 100,000 microns." The problem here is that to get the area of a square centimeter, you multiply 10,000 microns by 10,000 microns, this equals 100,000,000 microns/sq, not 100,000 microns as you stated. There is a huge difference between 100,000,000 and 100,000, which is why the surface area you calculated came out so high.
If one MTZ covers an area of 7,854 microns (based on the diameter of 100 microns, those of you with a pi function on your calculator can get this more accurately), then 150 Microns would cover an area of 1,178,100 microns. One centimeter square has an area of 100,000,000 microns/sq (each centimer is 10,000 microns by 10,000 microns = 100,000,000 microns/sq). So to calculate the percentage of coverage by one pass of the laser, set at 150 MTZs per cm/sq, you would divide 1,178,100 by 100,000,000 which equals an area of 0.011781 or 1.1%. Coolbreeze had this more accurate, must have that pi function.. 😉
Coolbreeze, 7000 microns would be huge IF IT WERE THE DIAMETER of the MTZ, but it's not, it's the area of the MTZ. If the area of one centimeter is 100 MILLION microns/sq, then in comparison 7,854 microns/sq is next to nothing.
"Reliant website says that each MTZ is the circumference of a human hair, or about 100 microns in diameter (a micron is a micromillimeter). There are 1000 microns to a millimeter; ten millimeters to a centimeter. That means that a linear centimeter is 10,000 microns wide. A square centimeter therefore has an area of 100,000 microns.
At a density of 150 MTZs per sq. cm., one pass of the fraxel laser would cover 15,000 microns/sq.cm or 15 percent of the skin. At a density of 250/sq. cm the coverage of one pass is 25,000 microns/sq.cm or 25 percent of the skin."[/i]
Sean..
After reading Sean's post, I thought some more about it. Yes, 7857 micron area seems big but it is not "linear" area of ~ 7 mm. Being area of the circle, 7857 is distributed equally around the center and visual perception ( which would be same as its width ) of it would be its diameter that is 100 microns. Also it is per sq. cm ( so proportion wise, 7857 in 10*8 microns is small ). Am not sure, if 100 microns can be easily seen by an unaided eye. Also, after laser hits the skin, as surrounding area must be getting affected /heated ( and red ), that would make it difficult to isolate MTZ.
In simple terms, fraxel punches thousands of tiny tiny tiny holes deep into your skin. These holes cause small areas of damage (MTZs - Micro Thermal Zones) which your body repairs by creating collagen over a period of several months.
As collagen builds, it slowly lifts scars back up to the level of your healthy skin. The more treatments that you receive, the more collagen is stimulated to grow, thus better results. Improvement in scarring is not immediate as the collagen can take severall months to grow, best results are seen 4 to 6 months after treatment.
Because such a small percentage of your skin is actually affected by the laser, downtime is much shorter than tradional ablative procedures. However, depending on how agressive the treatment is, you may experience downtime of a couple days to a week or so. Treatments at lower levels for wrinkles and discoloration generally have no downtime.
Sean...
This is how I envisage Fraxel treatment.
Instead of a solid laser beam that is used in traditional laser resurfacing ( like CO2), Fraxel uses "perforated" beam and leaves areas of skin in between untouched.
Treatment 1
*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
* are dots where laser hits the skin and creates what is called as microthermal zone or MTZ.
--- is untouched skin
Density is how closely dots are spaced. Two options 125 dots per sq. cm or 250 dots per cm.
'Cause of the untouched skin in between, downtime and recovery is faster.
Treatment 2 : consider the above pattern shifted right and down. ( am not showing vertical shift here )
-*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
-*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
-*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
-*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----
If you now superimpose treatments 1 and 2, total treated area becomes
**----**----**----**----**----
*----- *-----*----- *-----*-----
**----**----**----**----**----
*----- *-----*----- *-----*-----
**----**----**----**----**----
*----- *-----*----- *-----*-----
**----**----**----**----**----
*----- *-----*----- *-----*-----
Likewise, as no. of treatments increase, dots get more and more crowded and eventually it will look like this :
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Practically, after 4-5 treatments, coverage would be enough to produce significant results. That's why doing 1-2 treatments does not work with Fraxel and results are incremental and progressive.
Internally, MTZ keep on healing after the treatment and stimulate collagen.
Coolbreeze, what if they go over the same areas? I mean how do we know the second time the 'holes' will be in the new virgin areas?
There are two possibilities : Fraxel machine correlates between the treatments. It remembers positions of dots of each treatment and excludes them from the next treatment. That way, with every successive treatment, new area will be trageted and coverage increases linearly.
Second possibility is even if Fraxel machine is not that sophisticated and dots are selected randomly ( at given density ), probability of hitting the same dot again in the next treatment is not very high. Yes, there will be overlap and same areas might be treated again, but also new areas would be targeted. Only how much new area is not so predicatable ( and linear ) as is in the first case.
If same areas are treated, it should be okay as long as treatments are spaced at the interval Reliant specifies that is 2-4 weeks ( it used to be 1-4 weeks before ). By then, those areas will be healed. Only pain tolerence in those areas might be low.
It seems that people are saying you don't see the most optimal results until about 6 months after having 5-6 treatments at a level 20 +. Has anyone actually been through that many treatments at that level and waited to compare results 6 months later? I would love to here from you!
I believe lightgirl fits that description 
.
Hi lightgirl...any updates????
It seems that people are saying you don't see the most optimal results until about 6 months after having 5-6 treatments at a level 20 +. Has anyone actually been through that many treatments at that level and waited to compare results 6 months later? I would love to here from you!
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT 
. But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT . But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT . But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT :dance: . But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT :dance: . But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Guys just wondering,
does FRAXEL break down scar tissue as needling would? If this is the case, I guess it would be permenant which wud b GREAT :dance: . But if not what is the theory behind improvement of the scar?
Am not very sure, if Fraxel can break down really tough scar tissue or fibrous band and for that some scar revision procedure like NoKor subcision might help before doing Fraxel. The reason for scar improvment after Fraxel is, it stimulates collagen from beneath where there are microthermal zones. MTZ are where skin is burnt off and wounded. Depth of MTZ depends on the energy setting used. When MTZs heal internally, as part of natural healing, collagen is produced. So, deeper it goes, more collagen it produces. Fraxel does not destruct the top layer of the skin except minor peeling that happens after 2-3 days.
OKay well here i go again. A week and three days later from first fraxel and red that was horrible for first two days is now gone. Swelling left after 3rd day which was good. NOW scars are there still but i have to say that face is way smoother. Friends say it too. I am def back to normal peeling is done and again red has been gone since day 5. I am very pleased with this procedure. Again i can see scars still but face is def not as rough and complexion is much better. Waited to post till all the red was gone so not to be misleading. THe first 3 days i thought i would be a monster of redness for months. Then boom is just got so much better after that. I am def doing 4 treatmenst as month apart so will keep you all posted. Again my scars were on cheecks . For all wondering, think about this. If you can get your scars even ten to 20 percent better or you whold complexion looking more youthful then that is what you want. I would dare say 15 percent smoother off one fraxel. ALL you haters can respond but for scars on my cheeks i am very happy. Still need some works but after number 4 i can even dream how much better things could be. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE. 
YEAH!!! also there was a scary story in there abt a lady with second degree burns 
...whaddya guys think??
" Fraxel is an Ablative Laser" I think that says it all about how much this guy knows about the Fraxel laser..it's actually quite funny.. Try doing more research on the subject..JMO
OKay well here i go again. A week and three days later from first fraxel and red that was horrible for first two days is now gone. Swelling left after 3rd day which was good. NOW scars are there still but i have to say that face is way smoother. Friends say it too. I am def back to normal peeling is done and again red has been gone since day 5. I am very pleased with this procedure. Again i can see scars still but face is def not as rough and complexion is much better. Waited to post till all the red was gone so not to be misleading. THe first 3 days i thought i would be a monster of redness for months. Then boom is just got so much better after that. I am def doing 4 treatmenst as month apart so will keep you all posted. Again my scars were on cheecks . For all wondering, think about this. If you can get your scars even ten to 20 percent better or you whold complexion looking more youthful then that is what you want. I would dare say 15 percent smoother off one fraxel. ALL you haters can respond but for scars on my cheeks i am very happy. Still need some works but after number 4 i can even dream how much better things could be. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE. 🙂 😀 :drool:
Wait till a month before you make any conclusions ok? I had my first and its been one over month after already. At first, I was really happy like u, looks very smooth, but after 1 month plus now, not much difference i see, I'm looking forward for the 2nd and the 3rd though. They say u can't see the difference on the first one, very minimal.
#1Cubsfan- so are you done?? That's six treatments for you, right? I think in hindsight that the rudiness may have been a reaction to the new sunscreen. I'm paranoid about sun exposure, but can't find a good sunscreen. I had been using a moisturizer with an spf in it, but was recently told that, "well, it's better than nothing, but not as good as a sunscreen or a sunblock". Does this mean I've accrued sun damage when I though I was being so careful?