Question:
I’ve had laser treatments in the past to reduce age spots appearing around my hairline. How will the Fraxel laser system better treat my age spots than other lasers like the CO2 system?
Answer:
There are many laser treatments designed to treat age spots. The type of laser treatment which will work best for you will depend upon several issues. The quality of your skin, not just age spots but also the extent of wrinkling is a very important factor, but, also, the amount of downtime you are willing to tolerate after having your treatments. The Fraxel laser treatments are ideal for age spots as the Fraxel erbium laser penetrates deeply enough into the skin to destroy the cells that cause age spots, but, only results in a few days of facial redness following the procedure. The CO2 lasers are also excellent for age spots, however, the treatments are fairly aggressive. A straight non-fractionated CO2 laser will require several weeks to months to fully recover from, where a fractionated CO2 laser will still take about a week of recovery and you will require more than one treatment.
Posted by Dr. Philip Schoenfeld