Laser resurfacing is a scientifically proven effective technique. The beneficial effect of a laser on a particular target molecule has been scientifically tested and proven many times over.
Laser resurfacing is a procedure shrouded in many myths. Some say it is great for helping treat many skin blemishes, while others are skeptical that it is not. Also, it is not a fact that one or the other has actually undergone a laser, and not an IPL procedure. So what is it actually? Does laser resurfacing help or not?
Rejuvenation, what can a laser do?
Laser treatments are the effect on the skin of such light radiation, which is absorbed only by certain molecules. That:
- intracellular and extracellular water: for a CO2 laser;
- oxyhemoglobin, collagen and elastin proteins - for neodymium lasers;
- hemoglobin and melanin - for dye laser;
- melanin - for diode and alexandrite lasers.
By absorbing light, the desired molecule converts it into heat, and under the influence of the latter, it decomposes. This includes in the skin the same response that occurs to the injury, as a result, it begins to build on the missing elements. New cells are synthesized, new proteins of the three-dimensional framework of the skin: the integumentary tissue tightens, softens and the luminosity returns to it.
If the laser beams were beams, with a distance between the beams (fractional techniques), then microdepressions appear on the skin. The tissue tries to connect the edges of these grooves and thus the area of scars and stretch marks is reduced. And when the cells containing the melanin pigment (the one whose accumulations give rise to the appearance of age spots) are heated, the natural dye is excreted by the lymphatic system.
The effect described is typical of any type of laser. But this is where rejuvenation with just the CO2 laser ends. Neodymium and dye laser can also remove visible vessels: rosacea, enlarged veins, wine stains, spider veins.
Will there be no effect?
Laser resurfacing is a scientifically based technique, it cannot fail to have an effect. Let's explain: any laser target molecule is on our skin. We form collagen and elastin, otherwise the skin could not be on the surface, but would slide down. We also have hemoglobin with oxyhemoglobin in our vessels; otherwise, how would the skin be nourished? Perhaps, perhaps, not have melanin, but this is only in people with albinism.
The effect of a laser on a particular target has been scientifically tested and proven many times over. This is not a blind introduction to the drug, focusing only on the external signs of hyaluronic acid or collagen deficiency. It is a deliberate launch of an aseptic (non-microbial) inflammation in the skin, whose response is always the same: the production of its new elements.
Does laser resurfacing hurt?
Not always. If the procedure is carried out with a CO2 laser, which evaporates the columns of the skin, then anesthesia is required, up to general anesthesia. If you resort to resurfacing with a neodymium laser, the procedure is almost painless, since there is no trauma to the epidermis, and the impulses are not sent near the nerve endings, but into the microvessels.
If you undergo the procedure with a picosecond alexandrite laser, which sends pulses under the skin 100 times shorter than in other devices, then there will be no pain at all. Why? The fact is that with such a short pulse duration, no heating occurs, that is, it is the cause of pain.
So how does rejuvenation occur? Pulses lasting several picoseconds have a mechanical effect (skin scaffold protein micro-explosions). This triggers the formation of certain substances, cytokines, that transmit information from one cell to another. They support the skin's remodeling processes for a long time.