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Options for Laser Skin Resurfacing: What’s the Difference?

Author: Dr. Bobby Buka

Laser skin resurfacing helps smooth the look and feel of your skin. Freckles, wrinkles and lose skin from years of sun damage are easily corrected with the help of laser skin resurfacing.

Before making a decision to move forward with laser skin resurfacing, you must decide how deep you want the laser to go. The deeper the laser penetrates the skin the more impressive the results typically are.  It also takes longer to recover depending on the depth of the lasers.   Redness and some scabbing are typical side effects from laser skin resurfacing.

It is important to know there are stronger and weaker lasers.  The CO2 laser for instance gives fantastic results, although you may look like you have a bad sunburn for about a week.  This is due to the skin repairing itself and creating younger collagen fibers to replace the old damaged skin.  If a lighter laser is used like the Clear and Brilliant 1550 nanometer laser, the healing will be more rapid usually taking only a couple of hours.  This is perfect if you want to get a quick treatment in during lunch, because no one will know you’ve had anything done by the time you get back!

This laser is very mild and has less of an impact on scar tissue. You’ll notice some improvement in the coloration of the skin.  The skin will be more homogeneous and less freckly, by giving you a refreshed, rejuvenated look to your skin.

If you want a mix between the light Clear and Brilliant laser and the heavy CO2 laser, then I strongly recommend the Erbium YAG laser.   This laser is perfect for resurfacing skin with mild acne and the recovery time only takes about two days.  During this time, the skin will be pinkish for a day or two, but can give you a nice improvement in both texture and coloration of the skin.