Question:
My skin is fair and several blue veins are starting to show through quite prominently. Will laser skin resurfacing reduce the appearance of the blue lines even though my skin is extremely fair?
Answer:
The blue lines that you are seeing through your thin skin are veins. Laser skin resurfacing uses laser energy to heat the skin and enable new collagen to form which leads to tightened and healthier skin. The laser energy is designed to only penetrate as deeply as the outer most layer of the skin into what is known as the dermis. The laser energy should not go any deeper than the dermis. The veins that you are seeing in your skin are actually deeper than the laser will penetrate and the appearance of these veins should not be affected with laser resurfacing. Veins also vary in their size. The lasers that are designed for skin resurfacing are not designed to treat veins. The energy wavelength needed for skin resurfacing is very different than the energy that should be applied to your skin to treat veins in the deeper tissue.
Posted by Dr. Philip Schoenfeld