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How much will it cost? The fee for laser treatments can be located in the suggested fees . Please call my office for an accurate price quote or make an appointment for a personal consultation to discuss your specific concerns. My suggested quotes include professional fees, anesthesia fees, operating room costs, laser use fees, house calls, before care and after care. They do not include hospitalization costs, prescriptions, home nursing care, preoperative history and physical examination, laboratory costs, or pathology fees. If you compare prices, make sure that you consider all these costs. I require complete payment two weeks in advance of all cosmetic surgery. What can I do about the marks or lesions on my skin? The combination of aging and sun damage leads to superficial pigmented skin lesions. Skin injury can also leave pigmented marks or tattoos. Laser treatments reduce their prominence by selectively removing the color using laser light. Will this improve acne scarring? Colored light treatment of skin lesions will not help acne scarring. Only smoothing and tightening of the facial skin or surgery will improve acne scarring. Skin discoloration after acne usually passes on its own within three to six months after the acne has been controlled. Will this improve stretch marks? There have been reports of stretch mark treatment using colored light lasers. This can hasten the resolution of any redness of the stretch marks. However, stretch marks will normally lighten in color on their own over time (six to twelve months). Another treatment to consider is advanced skin care for stretch marks. This may be the most frequently ask question. This stems from the misconception that cosmetic surgery can eliminate scars. Traumatic or surgical scars are permanent. They will lighten over time but some mark in the skin will persist forever. Colored light laser treatment will hasten the lightening process but it will not improve the final scar appearance. It will not erase or eliminate scars. Can I have this treatment for dark, growing, bleeding, and/or itching growths? No! Any growth that changes color, has more that one color, bleeds, itches, stings, hurts, crusts, does not heal and/or is elevated above the skin surface must be biopsied and examined under the microscope. These symptoms may represent a skin cancer. Skin cancer can be life threatening and it cannot be ignored. See a physician immediately if you have any changes in any skin growth! Will it reduce the risk of skin cancer? Skin lesions can turn into skin cancers. Colored light laser treatment of pigmented skin lesion will reduce the color but it will not change the risk of skin cancer. See a physician immediately to discuss these choices if you have any changes in any skin growth! How is this different from surgery to remove a mark? When surgery is performed to remove a skin lesion or mark, a permanent scar will result from the skin incision. Laser treatment many times will leave no scar or skin changes. However, surgical removal may be less expensive than laser treatment. How many treatments will be necessary? Tattoos and birthmarks usually require many (five to ten) treatments to get acceptable lightening. Other skin lesions moles, nevi, telangectasias, and/or broken blood vessels may need only one or two treatments. What are the risks of laser treatments? There are risks with any surgery. Infection, excessive bleeding, abnormal scarring, poor healing, slow healing, skin loss, changes in skin sensation, muscle or nerve injury, although uncommon, can occur with any surgery. Fortunately, most problems that result from such complications are correctable with additional surgery. The most serious problem associated with resurfacing is infection. If this is a bacterial infection, severe scarring can result. Changes in skin color can also detract from the result. You must understand your risk of complications completely before you choose to have laser treatments. Can I have laser treatments after taking Acutane? Acutane reduces the healing capacity of the skin. I recommend that you wait a full two years after stopping Acutane. Even then there is a small increased risk of slow or poor healing after laser treatment. Will cold sores affect the results of surgery? Cold sores can affect the healing after any laser treatment. Laser treatments cannot be done if there are active cold sores on the lips, face, mouth, or skin. Will it affect the skin color? Even though the skin is pretreated for six to eight weeks with hydroquinone, there is still a risk of changes in skin color. These changes are more apparent if you have a darker skin tone (Asian, African American, and Native American). The darker skin tone will absorb some of the laser light just like the color in the skin mark. Can people of color have laser treatments? Darker skin color when treated with colored light lasers has a greater risk of changes in skin color. Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans must proceed cautiously with laser treatments because of this possible skin color change. The darker skin tone will absorb some of the laser light just like the color in the skin mark. During laser treatments, a few hairs will be vaporized. These will grow back as the hair follicles are not affected. I have heard about so many bad things on television, is it safe to have laser treatments? There are always risks with laser treatments. When severe complications are combined with inexperienced surgeons, poor results can occur. I believe that laser treatments can be done safely with a high degree of patient satisfaction. Serious problems are usually related to slow healing as a result of infection. Most poor results can be improved with additional surgery. What can you tell me about this new technique I saw on television? Everyone in America wants the latest in medical care. This is not always the best medical care. At times media presentations will leave out critical information about potential complications, quality of result, and FDA regulation. I am open minded when it comes to new technology but I would rather not use my patients to try out the newest techniques. Recent claims have been made about colored light lasers eliminating stretch marks and permanently removing hair. It is unclear if these claims will prove to be correct. For general health reasons, I recommend that all my patients stop smoking. It is clear that smoking increases your risk for developing all sorts of cancers. Breathing problems like emphysema and circulatory problems including heart attacks are also linked to smoking. Smoking also reduces blood flow that can result in skin loss during the healing period. This can ruin the results of your laser treatment and lead to revision surgery. It is always best to stop smoking. There are other choices when it comes to laser treatments. These include surgical removal, electrocautery (blood vessels only), acceptance of a deformity, and camouflage makeup. Always understand all your options before having laser treatments. What additional procedures can I consider that will enhance the result? Surgeries can be combined with dramatic and complimentary results. For safety reasons, I recommend the length of surgery be limited to six hours and no more than two areas of the body be treated at the same time. Laser treatments are frequently combined with other facial rejuvenation surgery (upper eyelid surgery, lower eyelid surgery, forehead lift, and laser resurfacing), facial liposuction, buccal fat pad excision, facial implants, hair restoration, and nose surgery. Am I a good candidate for laser treatments? This is a question that can only be answered after a personal consultation. Laser treatments are suggested to patients with pigmented, colored skin lesions. Patients with birthmarks, tattoos, age spots, and moles can all benefit form laser treatments. There are other things to consider as well including psychiatric conditions, life stress, medical illness, obesity, and motivation. You should be a healthy nonsmoker, within twenty pounds of your ideal weight. Major life stresses (i.e. grieving a death and divorce) must be absent in your life. The ideal candidate is motivated by internal desires to look better. How many times can I have laser treatments done? Colored light laser treatments usually leave little or no scarring in the skin. For this reason they can be repeated multiple time to treat the same mark or new lesions.
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