I think phenol peels are a wonderful way to provide wrinkle reduction; however, I feel that there are many drawbacks to the phenol peel when compared to laser resurfacing, especially erbium laser resurfacing. Phenol is toxic to melanocytes, which means that all patients treated with phenol peel will have lightening of the natural coloration of their skin. This does not occur with the erbium laser resurfacing. It can, in my opinion, occur with CO2 laser resurfacing however. I personally have done countless phenol peels in the past before I obtained my first erbium laser, and the results were excellent from a wrinkle reduction and skin tightening standpoint, but I did see a moderate amount of skin lightening and occasionally would see an area of mild scarring that would require additional treatment. Since I have been using my erbium laser for the past six to seven years, I have not had any appreciable loss of coloration of the skin nor have I seen any scarring despite the fact that I have been quite aggressive with this laser resurfacing and can obtain similar wrinkle reduction and similar skin tightening when compared to CO2 lasers or phenol-type peels.
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Deep acne scars are one of the most challenging problems that I personally face as a facial plastic surgeon. There really is no modality that can completely rid a patient of these unsightly scars. Dermabrasion certainly is an option for treatment of acne scars and has been an option for decades. The downside of dermabrasion is that it is very dependent on the experience of the surgeon performing the procedure. It is also a rather messy procedure and it can take ten days or even longer to completely heal. There is a remote risk of scarring if the procedure is performed too deeply. More recent advances for the treatment of acne scarring include erbium laser resurfacing, which allows the surgeon to have much more control over the depth of the injury. Healing time is somewhere in the one week to ten day range and the result can be rather significant. Even newer technology is the ProFractional laser resurfacing, which vaporizes small tunnels into the tissue. This can be set to go quite deep and additional heat can be set into the programming so that the deeper dermis is injured even further. During the healing process a large amount of collage in laid down into the deeper dermal layer and this in turn creates tightening and a significant reduction in the appearance of acne scarring. The advantage of this technique is that due to the fact that only a small percentage of the actual epidermis is injured, healing occurs much more rapidly. There is also a virtual elimination of any risk of scarring or pigmentary problems. The only downside to this technique is that it typically takes three treatments to obtain adequate improvement in the acne scarring. I have personally found that the ProFractional laser resurfacing can provide as good of an improvement in acne scarring or even a better appearance to the acne scarring when compared to the former modalities previously mentioned. I therefore consider
Absolutely, the skin will still tan after intense pulsed light. If a patient is having intense pulsed light treatments due to pigmentary issues, I obviously would then highly recommend that they not try to tan as the pigmentary issues will just recur and worsen. If patients are having intense pulsed light treatments for vascular lesions, I also again would recommend that they try to avoid the sun, but if they did end up getting sun exposure, they should tan in a natural way without any difficulties or influence from the IPL treatment. We all know the damaging effects of the sun’s rays and I counsel all of my patients to wear sunblock on a daily basis and should they desire any sort of improved or darker color to their skin that they consider some high end bronzing agents as the newer products that are available including the products that we have at Quintessa Medical Spa can provide a very natural appearing tan-like quality to the skin without the damaging effects that come with the actual exposure to the sun.
Depending on what type of laser is used for the hair removal, it is definitely not uncommon for freckles to turn darker. Most laser hair removal systems target the pigment that is within the hair shaft and because they target pigment, they can have the side effect of treating freckles or other darker skin lesions such has lentigines. Once the freckle turns darker, it typically essentially flakes away slightly one to two weeks after the treatment and is now a lighter color. There is typically less darkening with each successive laser hair removal treatment as the freckle itself is actually lighter in color. Should you end up getting sun exposure between treatments resulting in darkening of the freckle, this will once again be treated by the laser hair removal system and resulting darkening will again occur. We therefore highly recommend patients that are undergoing laser hair removal treatments to wear sunblock so that this does not happen.
I am 65 years old, but many think I am in my early 50’s – could I still be a candidate? And do you offer some type of a guarantee? I also have minimal spider veins on the face – does the procedure target this problem?
Ultherapy was tested for about one year before FDA approval. When all patients (many over age 65) were included in the studies, 80% responded to treatment and half of the non-responders had a response with a second treatment. Though we can not guarantee results, we will treat patients a second time at no cost. There have been a few changes to the protocols used to treat patients since the studies were done, and some centers are seeing a 100% response rate. We certainly can not say that it is 100% effective yet, but those are very encouraging statistics. Though you are not in our prime age range of 40-60 years old, it is really the patient’s ability to create new collagen that causes the lift, and not the failure of the device to cause denaturization of the collagen, as the science behind the method of injury is quite reliable and will work in 100% of patients. The only reason a patient would not have a response is if their tissue can not create enough new collagen (mainly due to age and sun damage). If your skin looks younger than your age, then you might still be an excellent candidate for Ultherapy. The results thus far have lasted 18 months and counting. By the mechanism of injury and healing, the result should really be “permanent” in that the patient will get the improvement and then age forward.
Ultherapy will not treat facial vessels, but we do have two lasers that are extremely effective at ridding patient’s of unsightly vascularity of the face, body, and legs. We would be happy to discuss this further at your consultation.
Hypertrophic scars from shingles can be a very difficult problem to fix. I put this condition in the same category as acne scarring or scarring from chicken pox or any other infectious disease. There really is no way to completely rid the body from a scar, but there are certainly ways to camouflage or reduce the appearance of a scar on the face or body. One of the new technologies available for scar reduction is ProFractional laser treatments. This erbium laser creates small tunnels of injury in the skin and because it actually destroys the tissue, there is a very significant healing response that occurs with this treatment. We typically set the depth of treatment down into the deeper dermis so that the healing response is targeted to this are of the skin. By increasing new collagen deposition in the deeper dermis, we can significantly improve the appearance of acne scarring, traumatic scarring, scarring from other infectious disease processes such as chicken pox, and even scarring or hypertrophic scarring from shingles. I personally feel this is one of the best if not the gold standard for treatment of any sort of scarring in the face or body. That is actually the most exciting part about ProFractional treatments is that is can be performed on areas outside of the face and neck to improve the appearance of scarring or pigmentary difficulties. I would recommend an evaluation by someone highly skilled and experienced with the ProFractional laser.
Ultherapy uses high intensity ultrasound to target the deeper layers of the face. By focusing ultrasound waves to a very small spot size 3-4.5 mm under the skin, the device can cause denaturization of collagen without injuring the overlying skin at all. This is completely different technology than Thermage that uses radio frequency.
Dr. Campbell realized the potential that Ultherapy had long before it was introduced into the USA. Quintessa Medical Spa is now one of only 25 centers that have this technology — we were actually the 9th USA! We have already seen some very impressive results with Ultherapy, and feel that the potential for ultrasound based non-surgical rejuvenation is almost limitless.
Ultherapy is a revolutionary treatment for the early signs of facial aging, such as low set brows, early jowling, and skin laxity under the chin. It uses ultrasound to visualize the tissue underneath the skin, then sends a focused wave of ultrasound energy that is targeted at the deeper tissues. This causes denaturization of the collagen, and the healing process then creates new collagen that tightens and lifts the soft tissue. The brows are lifted, and the jowls and laxity improved. The result is a more refreshed rejuvenated appearance. The procedure is performed in Quintessa Medical Spa, takes less than an hour, and has absolutely no downtime. Over the next 3 months, you should slowly see the improvement in your appearance. Right now, we have special pricing for Ultherapy saving you thousands. The area around the eyes including the eyebrow lift is $1500.00 (regularly $1800.00). The lower face is $2200.00 (regularly $2900.00), and both the upper and lower face together is $2900.00 (regularly $4700.00) Ultherapy seems to work best in patients that are 40-60 years old with early signs of aging, so you may be an excellent candidate.
I recommend you contact us for a complimentary consultation so we can evaluate your facial anatomy to make sure Ultherapy is right for you.
The easy answer to that question is avoidance of significant sun exposure. I highly recommend that patients wear a sunblock as opposed to a sunscreen due to the fact that a sunblock will prevent damage from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation where as a sunscreen continues to let a small amount of these damaging rays from entering the skin. Once a person has broken capillaries and brown spots and loss of collagen, they need to essentially consider a rejuvenating treatment such as laser resurfacing, ProFractional treatment, or any other treatment modality that will increase the collagen within their deep dermal tissue.
Though we are not usually using settings with enough power to actually burn the hair off the face when performing photofacials, it is theoretically possible to do so due to the fact that the intense pulsed light is absorbed by the melanin, which is within the hair shafts. This is not usually within the fine hairs of the face as these typically do not have any significant amount of melanin within them, but if someone has darker or coarser hair, the photofacial can certainly injure this hair. The settings on the intense pulsed light machine are different and the filters are also different when we are doing a photofacial versus an intense pulsed light hair removal treatment, so to answer your question, classically intense pulsed light will not burn the hair off of somebody’s face during a photofacial treatment.
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