Omer Antoine

If you can get rid of all your skin concerns such as hyper-pigmentation, acne scars, dullness, fine lines. What’s more, your face gets a renewed layer of glowy, healthy skin. Is that a dream? Read on…

What is Fractional laser?

Fractional laser treatment uses a device to deliver a laser beam divided into thousands of minute treatment zones that target a fraction of the skin at a time (approximately 5%). Various passes are made with the laser to receive a greater area of coverage depending on the condition on which is treated. Fractional laser treatments can be further divided into ablative and non-ablative.

When do we use non-ablative?

For wrinkles, pores, saggy skin always use non-ablative fractional resurfacing as collagen is found in the middle and deep layers of the skin. If we use ablative lasers for this it will strip the skin surface of collage stimulation!

When do we use ablative?

However, for hydrafacial scars of various types (boxscar, icepick, rolling, atrophic, hydrafacial hypertrophic) the collagen fibres form an alignment in a single direction and tether the skin down making the depression and thicken scar. With the use of ablative lasers, we can "loosen" and destroy some of these fibres relaxing the depression and thickness of the scar.

The basic difference between ablative and non-ablative treatments is that ablative lasers remove the top to deep layers of the skin, while non-ablative lasers work by heating up the underlying skin tissue (without harming the surface) so that your body will produce new collagen.

Pico vs CO2/Erb:Yag Fractional Resurfacing

In a nutshell, in particular with Asian skin types, many patients have reported CO2 and Erb:Yag fractional resurfacing to be too strong for their skin, leaving them with hyper sensitive skin after several sessions of treatment. Pico fractional resurfacing offers a gentler approach to suit Asian skin types better. Achieving similar results without severe downtime effects. That being said it is dependent on your tolerance of lasers and usually your doctor will advise you which is better suited for you.