The treated skin may swell, itch, or have a burning sensation. The skin may appear inflamed for several months after ablative laser treatment. The side effects of laser treatments, including Laser Tattoo Removal near Barnwell SC, are usually mild. They are usually rare when treatment is performed by a qualified professional and, if they do occur, they are usually easy to resolve.
Laser hair removal is a procedure for removing unwanted body hair. People may want treatment in their armpits, back, or bikini area. It's not permanent, but the results last longer than shaving or waxing. Most people need about six treatments. It's usually safe, but side effects can include burns, scarring, or permanent skin discoloration. Erbium laser rejuvenation is designed to eliminate moderately deep and superficial lines and wrinkles on the face, hands, neck or chest.
One of the benefits of erbium laser rejuvenation is that surrounding tissue is burned to a minimum. This laser causes fewer side effects, such as swelling, bruising and redness, so recovery time should be faster than with rejuvenation with CO2 laser. In some cases, recovery may take just a week. Ask your doctor how long it is likely to take you to recover.
There are now many new generations of pulsed dye lasers available with variable pulse duration, longer wavelengths, faster repetition rates, larger spot sizes, and epidermal cooling devices. While these improved devices improve clinical outcomes, some complications and side effects have not been reported completely eliminated. For example, several complications of pulsed dye laser therapy have persisted, such as purpura, blisters, pain, crusting, hypopigmentation, hyperpigmentation, dermatitis, and atrophic scar formation. 29,30 However, researchers have identified that laser therapy is associated with a relatively low complication rate.
The complications and side effects seen after laser treatment are temporary and are not dramatically serious or produce long-term effects. Rarely, laser hair removal can cause blisters, scabs, scars, or other changes in skin texture. Other rare side effects include graying of treated hair or excessive hair growth around treated areas, especially on darker skin. Almost any type of laser therapy can cause burns, scarring, dispigmentation, eye injuries, and infections.
These complications are the result of selective photothermolysis and, in some cases, can even be used for the benefit of the physician, for example, to reduce hyperpigmentation in melasma. When a laser acts on a chromophore, the molecules absorb energy and heat the surrounding tissue. To reduce the risk of complications from excessive thermal injury, many lasers use pulses that last less than the thermal relaxation time of the target tissue, which is the time needed for the tissue to cool down to the reference temperature. The goal of selective photothermolysis is to provide enough energy to destroy the chromophore without damaging the surrounding tissue.
It follows that surrounding non-target tissue can therefore be injured by overheating. Burns can result from prolonged pulses, excessive fluence (the amount of energy supplied to the target area) and inadequate cooling. The risk of burns is greater for lasers that use a continuous beam rather than a pulsed or fractured one. Newer devices reduce the risk of complications by emitting beam pulses in a range of milliseconds to nanoseconds, using multiple fast bursts almost continuously, or using extremely short pulses with high powers to allow a adequate thermal relaxation.
Hyperpigmentation and hypopigmentation after laser treatments are comparatively common complications, with hyperpigmentation occurring most frequently. The risk of dispigmentation is greater in people with darker skin (Fitz Patrick type III-VI) or who are excessively tanned. It can be reduced by avoiding sun exposure before and after laser treatments and by using a fractional laser delivery system or cooling devices. However, ironically, overuse of cooling can cause inflammation and also cause hyperpigmentation.
Hyperpigmentation may be due to the accumulation of extracellular melanin due to the destruction of melanocytes or to increased melanin production due to post-treatment inflammation. As such, it doesn't usually last more than three to four months. Usually, the best way to treat hyperpigmentation is with topical 4% hydroquinone, a whitening agent, but it can also be treated with chemical surface peels or cosmetics. It is also useful to avoid exposure to sunlight; for this reason, it is best to avoid laser facial rejuvenation, especially full field ablation, during the sunny summer months.
Burns are caused by overheating of the tissue due to excessive heat generation or insufficient cooling. Proper patient selection and conservative environments reduce the risk of adverse outcomes. Testing the configuration on a small area of skin two to three weeks before the main treatment also reduces the chance of developing complications; this technique is frequently used in laser hair removal. During treatment, an indication of excessive fluence and, therefore, of excessive heating is the graying of the tissue, which is more evident during non-ablative vascular treatments, in particular pulsed dye therapy for erythematous lesions or scars.
If graying occurs, the procedure should be stopped and the settings and cooling systems reevaluated. Most laser devices have fail-safe systems that prevent more energy from being supplied than the settings indicate, even in the event of a malfunction. However, a laser can supply less energy if it malfunctions, which can cause the rating to adjust to incorrect settings and, subsequently, cause excessive fluence once the device has been repaired. For this reason, it is essential to apply conservative adjustments in the first treatments after a qualified technician repairs the laser.
When burns occur, bleeding crusts and ulcerations may appear several days after treatment and may be warning signs of additional complications, such as scarring and dispigmentation. Excessive overlap of treatment areas can cause burns and dispigmentation, but too much space between treatment areas can cause visible areas of untreated skin to appear. Scars and dispigmentation may appear weeks or months after treatment. Proper technique and conservative adjustments are essential to reduce risk of burns.
When using a vascular laser, it is important to keep in mind that more erythematous lesions have higher concentrations of chromophores (oxyhemoglobin) and, therefore, will absorb more laser energy than less erythematous lesions; therefore, lower settings are effective for treatment. Likewise, lower adjustments are recommended when treating an injury with the underlying bone, such as on the forehead or orbital border, because energy will reflect back into the bone and go back through the target tissue. In addition to adjusting power supply settings, several cooling devices, when properly used, also reduce the risk of skin burns. Burns that follow laser therapy can be treated with immediate cooling and then with mild emollients and topical steroids to promote re-epithelialization.
Antibacterial prophylaxis for laser rejuvenation is controversial. If an infection is suspected, the culture threshold should be low, but it is rare that antibiotics are routinely prescribed before laser rejuvenation. Because of the risk of scarring, antibiotic treatment should be initiated promptly if a bacterial infection is suspected. Empirical antibiotic treatment should include Staphylococcus aureus, such as doxycycline or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, but ciprofloxacin may be necessary if the cultures reveal the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
When tissue chromophores, often hemoglobin, water, or melanin, are affected by laser energy, the photon is absorbed, causing the target material to heat up and inflict localized damage. The risk of damaging the skin is greater when there is little contrast between hair and skin color, but advances in laser technology have made laser hair removal an option for people with darker skin. To effectively treat a scar, the person performing the laser treatment must take into account your skin type, the characteristics of the scar, and your general health. When the person performing the laser treatment lacks medical experience and specialized knowledge about the skin, the laser treatment may not give the results it is looking for. Before laser hair removal, schedule a consultation with your doctor to determine if this is a treatment option that's right for you.
Complications of laser treatment can occur after the application of different types of laser devices, so they must be foreseen. Laser hair removal is not recommended for eyelids, eyebrows or surrounding areas, due to the possibility of serious eye damage. Ironically, in many cases, laser rejuvenation may be the best treatment for a scar, even if the cause was laser treatment in itself. Laser therapy has been used for forty years to reduce pain, swelling and inflammation, prevent tissue damage, heal wounds, and treat deeper tissues and nerves.
The laser photon is absorbed by retinal pigment cells, which increases the temperature of the cell and heats it and thereby destroys external retinal cells, including the external receptor photon and retinal pigment epithelium. Since laser skin rejuvenation is considered a cosmetic procedure, most health insurance companies don't cover it. The excessive use of energy in laser therapy ruptures the Burch membrane and, then, the synthesis of fibroblast growth factor and retinal pigment epithelium, which are activated to synthesize vascular endothelial growth factor, leading to the development of choroidal neovascularization. For impressive results and to avoid serious side effects, it's important to know these basic facts before undergoing laser treatment for a scar.
