Improve Skin Texture in Edmonton | Fraxel Laser Treatment
Hi everybody. Welcome to the Edmonton Dermatology YouTube channel. My name is Andrea. I’m one of the licensed practical nurses here at the clinic and I am registered as a nurse in here in Alberta. We are going to be talking about the Fraxel laser to improve skin texture in Edmonton. So Fraxel is a machine that uses a fractionated technology, fractionated, meaning it’s only shooting small columns of laser energy into the skin. Hence the short name Fraxel. Fraxel is a great machine. It’s actually made from the laser solta. They essentially have developed the, the machine. There’s several different kinds of proles out there. This one we have is the dual, which means there’s two different lasers into this handpiece. What this laser can treat essentially is scars. So deep tissue stuff pigmentation. It can also treat fine lines and deep wrinkles as well. Usually the Fraxel does require about four treatments depending on the type of condition you’re treating.
So say four fine lines and wrinkles. We’re looking about four treatments ’cause it really helps tighten the skin, brighten it up because it’s taking that pigmentation out and it can also help with any extra sun damage spots as well. When you’re looking more at melasma, which is a very deep pigmented type of condition of the skin, we’re having to treat a few more times. So it might not be just four treatments, it might be more like six treatments. Okay. it all depends on how a patient comes into us and is clinically appearing to us. And then that’s when we determine how many treatments you actually need when it comes to scar tissue. However, because scar tissue is so thick and dense, it does require a few more treatments. So it may be more like six to eight treatments, just depends on how thick that scar is.
And of course when you come into one of our consultations, we can definitely kind of talk about that a little bit more when we’re able to actually see what condition you’re coming in for us. So as you can kind of see on the screen here, I’m not too sure if you can see it too well, but it has the Fraxel 1515 TER fiber as well as the 1927 nanometer. So essentially what the 1550 is going to do, it’s gonna target deeper into the skin. So it’s actually gonna go more into the dermis, which is your second layer of your skin, which is actually where a log of the deep pigmentation can kind of rest into. But that is also where your collagen is. So your collagen is in your dermis and this is where this 1550 will target specifically, it’ll target the water in the area and cause heat so it causes inflammation in the skin that will help tighten up that collagen and create more smoothness in the skin.
Eliminate Fine Lines and Wrinkles
So helping with those fine lines and wrinkles when you come to the 1927, that one is going to help with your superficial pigmentation and a lot of those little fine lines. The, the pigmentation we’re talking about is in the first layer of the skin, the epidermis. So the 1927 when we set that, we can actually cause a bit of peeling in the skin and that’s kind of what we want ’cause we really need to smoothen out that top layer of the skin just to make sure that it’s not too kind of lagging too deep and it all stays nice and tight as well. Now no, there is no collagen in that layer, but we still want those skin cells to be happy, kind of connected together and keep those fine lines of bay. So that pigmentation in there, that’s a lot of that sun damage. That’s when the sun comes in and hits that part of your skin, changes the shape of your cells or even the DNA in your cells or causes pigmentation. So the 1920 seven’s gonna go ahead and target those conditions specifically.
Now of course each treatment is a little bit different. We can actually combine these two lasers essentially together. So we can combine the 1515 and the 1927. They don’t come out at the same time of the handpiece. So we do have to do a few passes with the 1550 and a few passes with the 1927. Again, just dependent on the type of condition that you have. When we would just pick, say the 50 50 again, that would be like scar tissue or very deep lines, stuff like that. The 1927, if it’s just treating pigmentation, very light pigmentation then we would just go ahead with that. Usually us girls do like to combine the two because you get an overall general good result when you combine the two at the same time. Usually the way the Fraxel works, it actually is a rolling mechanism.
So I’m just gonna grab the handpiece here and kind of show you. So the handpiece, yeah, looks pretty scary, all these extra fibers and wires and stuff like that, but they’re all necessary to create that energy from the ma from the main body into the hand piece. So the tip is here, this is actually a removable tip. So it is a disposable tip once the life of it has expired, which means it’s very clean and safe for any patients. It also has little rollers on here usually. So I kind of bring this in a little bit closer. There’s usually little rollers in there that we put because I’m not currently using it. I save those rollers for our patients. So when it actually is on the skin, it kind of rolls in a general direction and that’s how we essentially do the treatment.
This Treatment Includes a Cooling Fan
We will be posting hopefully some videos of a treatment when we do the fraxel. That way you can actually see it work in its magic. This hose here is actually a cooling fan, so that’s what this thing is down here. This is actually essentially like a air conditioner, but it blows cold air all the way from the bottom all the way to the handpiece and it blows directly onto the skin to kind of cause a nice cooling sensation when the machine is going. And of course all these extra little fibers down here is what creates the laser energy. So when the fraxel is actually going across your skin it will actually feel a little bit like cat scratches. So it’s not something that is overly comfortable, but it is something that we do use numbing cream before we actually start the procedure.
So usually there’s about a half hour of numbing that we like to do with a very good topical numbing topical cream over the face. We rub in a few layers, massage it in just to make sure it’s more comfortable for you. And then again that air conditioner blowing onto the area helps make it feel better so it does feel like little cat scratches and we do go over the areas in one direction, then we go across in the other direction. We go across in this direction again. So like I said, when we do our treatments, we do like to combine the two lasers together. So that’s why we need to do those different directions and that make sure we actually cover all the area of the skin so we’re not missing any spots. So once the Fraxel treatment is done, and that’s, like I said, it takes about a half hour for numbing and then it takes about an hour usually to do the treatment itself.
Fraxel Laser Feels Like a Mild Sunburn
And of course we take it to everybody’s tolerance. Once it’s actually done, it kind of feels like a sunburn not a severe sunburn where you think you’re going to blister and it’s like excruciatingly painful, but it’s definitely got that heat sensation that’s happening. So that kind of burning, not really burning, but more like a tingling effect that’s happening in your skin. And you do leave here visibly red. That redness usually lasts about two to four days. Once that redness starts to settle, which is about day four the pigmentation, what happens is it actually starts to rise in the skin. Pigmentation isn’t easily broken down by the body, it’s actually just created and then it’s an element that just can’t go through your system. It actually needs to be pushed out in the skin. So your body, your skin cells will actually start to push that up to the surface of your skin.
So right at that second, that first layer of skin and there, what happens is it actually gets really dark. So when you look at it, you’re like, oh my gosh, why is this so dark? This didn’t work. Like what’s going on? It made my pigmentation worse. No, it’s okay. It’s actually just part of the treatment. So when it comes up to the surface, it actually will start kind of getting crumbly, almost like coffee grounds on the skin and you can literally just wipe it off and then afterwards that takes about, you know, another three, four days to actually kind of all come off. So you’re looking at, at the most about 10 days of downtime after a treatment. Now again, like I said, it can be different amount of treatments we need for specific conditions. So for fine lines and wrinkles. So anti-aging, that is something that will take about four treatments and at each time you will see that little bit of pigmentation.
Eliminate Skin Pigmentation Quickly
Now the first two treatments you will see the most pigmentation come out because the next two are just kind of helping out get whatever little leftovers are behind. When it comes to the scar treatments, again you’re not going to probably see as much pigmentation kind of floating up to the surface. It’s more that redness that we want to create because we need to really change that collagen that’s in there. So the collagen is what we’re targeting the most. We may not always use that 1927 like I mentioned for that superficial pigmentation, but we will really use that 1550 to kind of really get in there and smoothen out that scar tissue. When it comes to melasma, like I said, again it takes several treatments to really treat that. You will see a lot of the pigmentation come out. However, melasma is a long term condition.
It’s not something that is just treatable and it’s done. Fraxel is a good way to try and get as most of that pigmentation out as fast as we can. And then we go ahead with skincare to try and maintain so it does not come back full force. So it is a long-term condition. It’s actually a very difficult condition to treat. But of course laser and skincare together is always the best option to make sure that your skin is smooth and clear. Now, like I mentioned earlier, this can treat almost every skin type. So it is safe to use on skip type one through five. With any five still is kind of on the fence a little bit because it is a higher type of skin type so you much darker pigmentation that the laser can have a little bit of trouble trying to figure out the difference between pigmentation that we don’t want and the skin’s natural good pigmentation.
Fraxel Laser Conclusion
So we tend to be a little bit leery on those types of patients. Of course, if it is for a scar from trauma or surgical, that one we tend to be not too bad with. But if it is for general rejuvenation, that’s something that we do take a little bit more lightly, which means we do take more treatments to go ahead and do that. For a skin type, anything higher than a five, we usually say unfortunately this is not quite the laser for you. There are other machines out there for that. Again, we’d have to kind of come have you come in and see us to determine if Fraxel is the correct treatment for you. Of course our consultations are complimentary here at Edmonton Dermatology and hopefully we will see you in the future. And I really hope that this little tutorial about the Fraxel laser answered a few of your questions about improve skin texture in Edmonton. What we’d like you to do is like our video. Please ask me any questions if you have anything that you want that I didn’t answer. And please hit subscribe to our channel so that you can be up to date with any of the new videos that we do post. Thanks so much.