Case #2083

Description:

Our lovely patient in her 70’s had severe photo-aging from many years of sun exposure, as demonstrated by the many brown spots and fine wrinkles.

After discussing various laser treatment options, she elected for a fully ablative CO2 laser skin resurfacing for her face. She is shown here at 2.5 months after her treatment.

The fully ablative CO2 laser involves treating 100% of the surface area. This is a more aggressive treatment than Fractionated CO2 laser skin resurfacing, which I perform for most patients.

The benefit of a fully ablative CO2 laser treatment is that it can provide greater improvements in terms of dyschromias (brown spots) and fine lines, and it causes more collagen contraction than fractionated CO2 and erbium lasers. However, fully ablative CO2 does come with a longer recovery time of about 2 weeks, compared to the 7-10 days of fractionated CO2.

The fully ablative CO2 laser is a more aggressive treatment and is typically performed under IV sedation when the entire face is treated. Regional treatments, such as around the mouth or the forehead, can be performed under local anesthesia if desired.

We are grateful that she has given us permission to show her photos. Her eyes were blurred per her request.