Facelift

As plastic surgeons we’re always talking about face lifting, cheek augmenting, brow lifting, these are all surgical procedures. The one thing that is often not addressed in some of those procedures is the outer covering and that is the realm of resurfacing.

There’s a little history associated with resurfacing the skin. Resurfacing has been around for thousands of years. There is actual historical documentation that Egyptian women used to take pumice stones and just scrub the skin. This was an early form of dermabrasion which is resurfacing of the skin. This is a controlled injury to the skin which forces the skin to heal. You’re almost exercising the skin. When it grows back and heals its smoother, tighter, and the complexion is better.

In modern times we do this several different ways. One of the ways is chemical peeling. We take a light chemical, it exfoliates the skin, and the skin heels itself and looks healthier. Now we can use lasers for this purpose. The most technologically advanced one that we have available here at Premier Image is Fractional CO2 laser resurfacing. We now have a laser procedure that gives you all the benefits of the older style of laser resurfacing without the recovery time.

When we mention CO2 resurfacing to patients they sometimes cringe a little bit because 10 to 15 years ago it was quite a recovery associated with CO2 resurfacing. Now we learned to harness that laser, the power of it, and deliver it in the correct way to the skin. This is called fractional resurfacing. Instead of taking off the whole layer of skin, the laser drills small, tiny microscopic holes in the skin. It leaves normal skin around these little holes. The skin still has to heal but it heals very quickly.

Almost a 100% of patients are back in makeup by 5 to 6 days. That was unheard of from the resurfacing we had as little as 5 or 6 years ago. The results have been fantastic. In fact it has become the gold standard for acne treatment where there was acne scarring on the face and lines on the face. Results are amazing without a lot of recovery time. It can be repeated once every 2 to 3 months.