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This one really hurt - I went for 30 x 14 passes x 125 = 52500 Unfortunately due to the extent of treatment I have quite a lot of pinpoint bleeding on my forehead and nose and a bit on my cheeks. Was pretty intense treatment, probably the most painful of them all.
Holy cow... 😯 That is intense.... I just had Fraxel #7 at 17 x 6 passes and I thought THAT was bad to go through.... I look like a tomato and have some minor pinprick spots on my forehead and temples. I also signed up for 3 more full face treatments...for $900. I don't understand why it is so cheap compared to other places....not that I'm complaining.
Hi all. Just had my fourth and last fraxel treatment. This time the dr. came in to look at my skin before the blue dye was put on and marked the "trouble" areas with a pen so he could go more aggressively there. I go for a follow up in 8 weeks to decide what course of action to follow (continue with fraxel, do TCA Cross, etc). We looked at my before pictures. The fine lines around my eyes that extended downward are GONE. I didn't know I even had those until I saw the picture. He thinks the right side of my face looks better than the left. I think that's funny, because it's the right side that I'm so self conscious about. Just goes to show you - the things that bother US the most are not necessarily the things that other people notice.
I'm feeling ok about my progress so far. I'm far from scar free, but my scars are much softer and my skin tone is much more even. My husband said to me the other day, "I can't believe how much different your skin looks" - and he's not the kind of guy that pays lip service. WHether it'll be good enough for me or not, I don't yet know. Being satisfied by #3 and being satisfied at #4 are two different things. At #3 there is still the hope for further improvement. After #4 you know that's as good as it's going to get from your fraxel package.
ChrissyC,
What kind of scars did you have/how severe? I feel like you've described them elsewhere already, but can't keep everyone straight in this huge thread.
Thanks
Medusa
Medusa,
I'm still a little confused by all the scar terminology - none of the pictures in the FAQ really look like what I have. I asked my doctor, he said I have 5 or 6 DEEP ice picks (this I knew, and they haven't changed much), a lot of scarred pores and boxcars - a couple of bigger ones and a spattering of small ones (what I had thought were scarred pores). The scarring is concentrated on my cheeks and is varied enough that it makes my skin look rough. Make up does not cover these scars. It has only been since the fraxel treatments that the combination of primer and tinted foundation actually does make my skin look decent (I use this word loosely). My scars don't really show up in pictures, but they are most definitely there. I know that we tend to be more critical of ourselves than other people are of us, but it doesn't change the fact that my scars, though not "severe" are an eyesore to me and quite noticeable to the naked eye.
I am still a bit confused about the intensity of the fraxel treatments. A lot of people have mentioned going 20, 25, 30mJ on their treatments. I've had 3 so far and they have been 10, 12 and 14mJ (125). I have seen maybe a slight improvement on my skin. Since I'm Asian with Type III skin, my doc wanted to be cautious. I am wondering if I'm under-treating my skin. I pre-paid for 4 treatments and scheduled #4 next Friday. Hopefully I can go 16mJ. But with all the talk on the higher settings, I'm wondering if even at 16mJ (125) that I'm still under-treating. I do notice that my skin appears smoother with no hyperpigmentation (that's another concern my doc had).
Peach pie, thanks for the encouragement. The staff really wouldn't care what I do to my face, but my colleagues definitely would. I work in a company with mostly male colleagues, and they are great (I'm not male-bashing here), but it's can be a very aggressive environment and revealing that you're having any cosmetic procedure done would underscore my difference from them. It's just part of the culture of this particular workplace, but I have a lot of freedom otherwise and am happy here.
Medusa: If you did your treatment on a Thursday, and took the Friday off, by Monday you would look pretty presentable, though still red and flakey. Could you not just tell people you went for a "spa treatment" and had some sort of facial that made your skin peely. Sounds less serious and less like a "procedure".
To me a cosmetic procedure is anything from whitening your teeth, to colouring your hair, to botox. The environment you describe sounds like a very competitive one where people want to present and look their best to have an edge. I bet that some of the men there have whitened their teeth, had acne and scar treatments, go to the gym to look better in their clothes and some will even have had botox. Yes lots of guys do botox.
Hope you find a way to work it into your life. Good Luck.
Peach Pie
ChrissyC,
I can relate to almost everything you just said in your recent post. I too just had my fourth (and final?) treatment. The dr came in to look at my scars before the numbing cream was applied. He compared my face to the before pics (which I refuse to look at until I am all done) and was pleased. He isn't an easy to please guy so when he said it looked "quite good" I was happy. The laser nurse said my results have been as nice as any she has seen. She has been doing it for awhile, is very involved with nationwide conferences, etc. so that made me feel pretty good. But, as you said, being satisfied after #4 is going to be difficult. No more "one last perfecting treatment" to pin my hopes on.
BTW: my treatments have not been nearly as deep as some of yours. I started slow and built up to 20. My skin still seems to have responded well so I'm not convinced starting off crazy is the way to go for everyone.
My skin is red and awful looking right now. Bleck. It really isn't a fun proceedure! am using the biafine this time. I really hope that will make the healing speed up but I feel pretty raw. I had loads of pinprick bleeding and parts of my face were weeping. I woke up the day after I had it done with some thick yellow scabs. That was just from 20. I can't believe that some of you are going higher, up to 30!!!
Quick question all....
Do you really need to take pain killers before the treatment, or some topical numbing cream would be oK? I still have some numbing cream from my past smoothbeam treatments before and since I am 1 1/2 hour drive from the derm, I can just smear it to my face and by the time I get there, I'm pretty sure I'm numb at that time (thanks Faye for your recommendation)
Quick question all....
Do you really need to take pain killers before the treatment, or some topical numbing cream would be oK? I still have some numbing cream from my past smoothbeam treatments before and since I am 1 1/2 hour drive from the derm, I can just smear it to my face and by the time I get there, I'm pretty sure I'm numb at that time (thanks Faye for your recommendation)
Hi,
I just had my 6th (and final!) fraxel treatment yesterday. I never once took pain killers during my treatments. Numbing cream sufficed for me, but apparently I have a high pain tolerance compared to a lot of other fraxelers.
Faye,
How would you classify your scarring? That's encouraging that the dr. and nurse were so positive about the results. I'm still pretty raw from my treatment too - but went out into the world with my family today anyway. It occurs to me that although my scarring is definitely improved, I simply will never have nice skin. ANd my scarring isn't really that bad. But I look at my 4 year old's flawless skin and think how sad I will be if she ends up scarred like me. Thankfully my husband's family has no history of acne at all. SHould balance out my family history.
I'm not really sure how to classify my scarring. Yucky.
I had mild to moderate scars, mostly ice pick.
My skin is never going to be perfect either but my husband was talking with one of my friends the other day (not many people know I'm getting this done but she does) and she asked him why I was doing it. She thought I had great skin. lol
But then on my first appointment with the derm the laser nurse said some of my scars were pretty deep so I needed to be realistic about my results. So who knows.
The dr. and nurse where doing that talk-about-you-like-you-aren't-in-the-room thing that I just hate and he was saying they would put me on some vita c serum when I had healed from this treatment. Since the recommendation is 4-6 and they think I am done at 4 I think that is good. Instead of talking future laser treatments they are talking serums. Hopeful, right?
Okay, I really don't understand all of this "redness and flaky" talk ...
Can anyone be more specific? I mean, I've had 7 courses of accutane, and during that time, my skin was pretty much always red and flaky. Is that the kind of red and flaky we are talking about? I also like to tan, so does it look like you just got a bad sunburn or something?
And finally, according to the adds and stuff, people are able to go back to work like the next day. Is this not the case? Would you not go back to work the next day if you had a really bad sunburn? Or is this appearance totally different than a bad sunburn??
Faye-that's funny about your friend. My husband told one of his friends that I had gone to see an out of state doctor which of course caused a flurry of concern from the friend. My husband had to tell him what was up and the friend was like, "What? She has acne scars?" Keep me posted on your follow up regime. I'm trying to determine what to do now that my package is up...
Furo- For me anyway, it looks MUCH worse than a sunburn the next day. First of all, it's a little uneven because the way the tip is applied to the face. I actually have some pinpoint bleeding, etc. I had my fraxel yesterday and there are "stripes" on one part of my face. Second, it's an ANGRY red. SO red it's almost not red, if that makes sense. My pores/scars always look much worse/accentuated for the first two days. By day three or four I'm benefitting from the swelling without so much of the angry redness. Luckily I can tone it down quite a bit with tinted moisturizer, but that doesn't go on that smoothly because of the sandpaper texture that persists for the first several days.
Those ads, I think, are for people that have much lower levels. I have my fraxels at around 24.
Peach pie, thanks for the encouragement. The staff really wouldn't care what I do to my face, but my colleagues definitely would. I work in a company with mostly male colleagues, and they are great (I'm not male-bashing here), but it's can be a very aggressive environment and revealing that you're having any cosmetic procedure done would underscore my difference from them. It's just part of the culture of this particular workplace, but I have a lot of freedom otherwise and am happy here.
Medusa: If you did your treatment on a Thursday, and took the Friday off, by Monday you would look pretty presentable, though still red and flakey. Could you not just tell people you went for a "spa treatment" and had some sort of facial that made your skin peely. Sounds less serious and less like a "procedure".
To me a cosmetic procedure is anything from whitening your teeth, to colouring your hair, to botox. The environment you describe sounds like a very competitive one where people want to present and look their best to have an edge. I bet that some of the men there have whitened their teeth, had acne and scar treatments, go to the gym to look better in their clothes and some will even have had botox. Yes lots of guys do botox.
Hope you find a way to work it into your life. Good Luck.
Peach Pie
Yes, I'm sure you're right that some of these guys are closet botox-ers and whatnot. In fact, I was actually looking at the calendar, and Christmas falls on a Monday so I could probably squeeze a treatment in the Friday afternoon before. And then there is Thanksgiving too. I'm starting to think I can work this out by spending every holiday red-faced, which is fine by me. Hopefully those dates will work out with my doc and I'll get a couple treatments done before the end of the year! Thanks for the support.
Okay, I really don't understand all of this "redness and flaky" talk ...
Can anyone be more specific? I mean, I've had 7 courses of accutane, and during that time, my skin was pretty much always red and flaky. Is that the kind of red and flaky we are talking about? I also like to tan, so does it look like you just got a bad sunburn or something?
And finally, according to the adds and stuff, people are able to go back to work like the next day. Is this not the case? Would you not go back to work the next day if you had a really bad sunburn? Or is this appearance totally different than a bad sunburn??
Don't rely on what they say in the Fraxel ads. Those guidelines are meant for people getting treatments for wrinkles and sun damage at much lower levels than the settings used for scarring. They say it's a 'lunchtime' treatment and that is not the case for acne scar patients. We've all had different experiences with recovery, some people swell, some people get really red and some people flake more. I had my 7th treatment on Friday and right now I look like I have a sunburn. I have 'raccoon' eyes and you can definitely see the line around my face where the laser was used. In a few days my skin will start to flake. It's not like sunburn peeling exactly, you can't peel off sheets of skin or anything; your skin feels more like sandpaper. Areas just have little flakes that you can keep under control with moisturizer until the skin sloughs off naturally. (takes a week or two depending on how high the setting was).
There is no real 'medical' reason why you can't go back to work the next day, I guess it just depends how sensitive you are about your face looking puffy and red. I'd rather hide out for a few days....;)
hi,
The higher the intensity of your treatment, the greater the down time. In my last treatment at 7 passes at 25 and 7 passes at 30, I was red for 4 weeks and peeled for 2 weeks. My face looked really bad for the first 4 days. I can safely say, you won't look presentable at the higher levels for at least 4 days. The swelling is intense at treatment above 25. There is scabbing, pin-point bleeding and your skin-tone will be very uneven. Not too mention your skin will feel like sandpaper.
At my last treatment I expect to peel for 2 weeks and by red for around 5 weeks. This is a normal response from what my doc tells me. Just be prepared for this if you are being treated above level 20.
Blaster.
Well if that is the kind of response that your skin has from levels such as 20-25, how is it even possible to have multiple treatments in a short time? Are you saying that if you are receiving higher levels of intensity, then you need to have 5 weeks in between treatments? Has the derm said specifically that it is not feasible to treat multiple times within a shorter time frame at that intensity?
It was my understanding that regardless of your facial appearance, the major changes are occuring below the surface where the beam penetrates. And this is why it is acceptable to get multiple treatments within a month. Is this not the case?
Does anyone have an example of receiving more than one treatment at intensity of over 20 within a 2-3 week period?
Does anyone have some pictures of what this redness and "lines/stripes from the laser" look like? I would like to see that and compare it to a sunburn etc. Because I've had some pretty bad sunburns (lobster-like) and I don't see how this could be any more red than that. The flaking can be beat with Keri lotion I'm sure (long bouts with accutane have proven that for me).
I had my 4th on Thursday and I am still so red and horid looking. I'm so sick of this! I look like shit, I can't go anywhere, and my face hurts! My skin is so cracked around my mouth that if I open my mouth wide enough to eat a sandwich it starts to bleed. I am so unbelievably discouraged. I don't think I could do another one of these if I had to.
I had my 4th on Thursday and I am still so red and horid looking. I'm so sick of this! I look like shit, I can't go anywhere, and my face hurts! My skin is so cracked around my mouth that if I open my mouth wide enough to eat a sandwich it starts to bleed. I am so unbelievably discouraged. I don't think I could do another one of these if I had to.
Hang in there. You are doing great. Just a few days of downtime for a fresh new start of life. Be strong. 🙂
Faye -
We're living parallel lives. Scary. They changed tips on mehalf way through too. The first half of my face, I could hardly feel the laser. I mentioned it to the doctor. SO on the left side he changed tips and not only could I feel it, but I could HEAR it. He went back to the other side and relasered, but my face looks pretty uneven now. Could those pimply things actually be blisters?
I can't believe I actually leave the house looking like this.
hehe alright... soooooo i decided to give fraxel another go.. for those who know me, i've done 3 treatments already and they've given me decent results. settings were set at 15/20/22mj... ANYWAY well i was looking around to find a treatment for my hypertrophic scars on my chest and back when i came across a doctor in socal that does 4 treatments of fraxel for 2.5k which is like... WHOA CHEAP!... ANYWAY i had my first treatment out of the 4 done on... thursday and as expected... the bloody thing felt like hell fire. i mean... i am grown asian male, but for me to shed some tears - that's pretty rough.. from my memory 20mj didn't hurt that much and i didn't have vicodin that time. :think: ..in the end, all is well. my face does look like a basketball but beside from that everything is cool. this last treatment was at 18mj in case you were wondering. do you guys know of any other method of keeping the swelling down other than putting ice on it? i've been using this foam spray thing called.. olux... and it has helped a lot. the thing is... i ran out and i can't more until tomorrow AND i still have some swelling left. :injured:
ta-ta, alex
hi Jillin can you tell me where you had your fraxel done... im also from southern california
