There are a lot of different lasers out there. Essentially for Laser Resurfacing, there are two lasers out there: CO2 and Erbium.

CO2 allows you to be more aggressive and you can vary the degree of this to fit anyone. Lumenis and their Active FX/Deep FX is the best in my opinion and in the opinion of the most infleuntial people out there. This is a CO2 laser.

Erbium has some limitations in that it can’t go very deep and doesn’t cause tissue contraction like CO2 lasers can. All other lasers such as Fraxel and Fractional lasers work by causing manipulation to the deeper layers of the skin to cause skin tightening. There are just a lot of companies out there selling them with different names. You just have to ask them what technology they are using and if they are making it complicated then I would ask someone else. These lasers take more treatments and take more time and money but have less downtime based on company reports.

However, I’ve heard from other patients that Fraxel and other fractionated lasers can cause more downtime than what the “people” are telling everyone.

What’s the best? It depends on how significant your wrinkles are. The more significant, the more aggressive you might want to be. It also depends on your lifestyle. Does your lifestyle dictate that you can’t have any downtime, if so you should consider less aggressive means.

Dr Young is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington