Non-ablative laser treatments
In the last several years laser treatments have been getting more popular among older people that want to eliminate wrinkles, fine lines, scars, stretch marks, melasma and other signs of aging without the need of plastic surgery or other risky treatments.
With a non ablative laser there is no downtime and no anesthesia, after the therapy you can immediately continue with your daily activities and go back to work. It induces a dermal healing response without injuring the epidermis. The nonablative rejuvenation mechanism results in a wound repair response and collagen reformation.The results are dramatic but it usually requires 2 to 5 treatments to see those results, so it will require sometime.
What are Non ablative devices good for?
Non ablative laser facials target the skins dermis, this is why there is no downtime and more than one session is needed. This treatment is good for photoaging and mild to moderate wrinkling. You can get rid of acne scarring in 4 to 6 sessions, you will experience about three days of redness and be a little uncomfortable right after the treatment.
Invasive treatments usually take from a week up to two weeks of recovery after the therapy, instead non ablative laser let you keep up with your busy live immediately.
Ablative Laser Facials
On the other hand ablative treatments are more severe and can even cause epidermal burning. The recovery time can take up to 6 weeks. You can treat well scars and deep wrinkles and severe damage from the sun in older skin. So the results are very good, but is a little bit for riskier and more recovery time is required.
Benefits
Non ablative light therapy improves tone, skin texture, wrinkles, skin irregularities, scarring and dyspigmentation. The biggest benefit as we have said is that it requries no downtime.
Nonablative Devices
Some of the most common devices are:
- KTP laser
- Intense Pulsed Light IPL
- Nd:YAG lasers
- Diode Lasers
- Er:Glass Laser
- Light emitting diodes
Those have been very effective for nonablative resurfacing
Who is the Ideal Patient for nonablative rejuvenation?
First the patient needs to know what he wants to achieve so his doctor can determine is a non ablative treatment is ideal and will solve the issue.
Usually the best candidate for nonablative resurfacing are people from 25 to 65 years old and with minimal sagging on the face. You have to keep in mind that most of the time your skin texture will improve and your wrinkles soften but not dissapear.
Due to the fact that various sessions will be needed to get the desired results, you will no see immediate results after the first treatment, changes will appear gradually.
Side Effects
If you dont like downtime and discomfort you will like nonablative therapy.
Some treatments could be a bit painful. For example infrared sources are the most painful of the procedures, require local anesthesia to be tolerable.
After a treatment you may experience mild erythema and edema but these stop within minutes to a few hours.
Intense treatments can cause moderate edema and erythma, which can last from 1 to 2 days after the treatment
You need to differenciate from:
- Infrared nonablative devices
- Pulsed Dye Lasers
- IPLs
- Nd:YAG lasers
With infrared lasers redness and swelling only last a few hours. While with other devices side effects and longer duration tissue effects are common.
For dark skin patients with tendency to hyperpigmentation after skin injury can safely undergo an infrared nonablative treatment. However with non-infrared devices treating tan patients is riskier, so you need to consult this with your doctor.
Conclusion
Even though nonablative laser is a good option, have yet to replace proven laser resurfacing or surgical procedures for facial rejuvenation.
More studies and evaluations are needed to determine the right settings to achieve a long term benefit and minimize possible side effects.
However nonablative procedures still are a great alternative for the person that cant afford long downtime of more aggrevise and invasive methods.
Here is a small Video of a Non Ablative laser treatment being applied
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