
Patients may experience a slight redness or pinkness which should subside within an hour or two.
In the month leading up to your treatment, follow any specific skincare instructions given during your initial consultation.Otherwise, continue with your usual skincare routine. Two weeks before your appointment, make sun protection your top priority! Use SPF 50+ daily, reapplying frequently, and avoid sunburns, tanning beds, and self-tanners. Three days before your session, maintain your normal skincare but stop using products with active ingredients like retinol and glycolic acid.
You may experience some temporary redness or pinkness, but this should fade within a couple of hours. If desired, you can apply makeup immediately after your treatment depending on the treatment area. Diligently use SPF 50+ throughout the healing process. In the evening, resume your normal skincare routine, but avoid any active ingredients. You can resume your full skincare routine, including actives, the following day.
No it is not painful. The laser is hot but we have a very cold cooling tip so patients do not feel its heat. It feels similar to a little mosquito bite however, no anesthetic is needed.
Generally the protocol is 3 treatments 4 weeks apart. Each treatment takes about 30 min (if doing the face only).
Full results take 12 weeks after the last treatment and keep working for up to a year.
After the first treatment, acne can initially get worse before it gets better. This is because when the cells first start dying, there is a release of a lot of “junk” in the cells that can cause more acne but it is important to remember that it will get better.
The initial purge happens after the first treatment and the acne can get worse in the first 4 weeks. However, there are things we can do to combat this. For example, we can talk about different skincare regimens and using different lasers to counteract the purge. Doing a chemical peel can greatly help as it cleans up the skin very effectively. We can also use topical ointments to minimize the purge.
Medically Reviewed By: Dr. Tammy Chen, DDS