Have you considered laser resurfacing to get rid of your severe acne scars?

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Have you considered laser resurfacing to get rid of your severe acne scars?

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If laser resurfacing was an option for my skin tone, I most likely would have done it a long time ago, but alas given the bad experience I had with laser hair removal, I know that I need to stay as far away from laser … especially on my face.

I’m so grateful to reader Norah that she will gracefully recount her first of many laser resurfacing treatments to deal with scars left behind on her face from teenage acne.

Norah will be documenting her many treatments, but this is the first account of her road to having a face that is free of any scars!

Story submitted by reader Norah R.

I got to the hospital in Toronto at 2 p.m. prompt for my first Fraxel (Laser Skin Resurfacing) treatment. On account of mild to moderate acne scarring, I had been waiting to do this for over a decade, and now that the actual day of treatment was here, after all this time, I found myself equal parts anxious, excited and afraid.

I was taken into a little room, and told to wash all my make-up off so my face was squeaky clean. The technician (the procedure is not done by a doctor) applied a thick, clear gel to my face. It’s similar to EMLA, a topical analgesic that numbs your skin when you have a needle, and its purpose is to help numb your face so the laser doesn’t hurt so much. I also took 2 Tylenol 3s with Codeine at this time, along with a Valtrex (Yes, I know — Valtrex?!) If you’re like me, the first thing you think of when you think of Valtrex is sexually-transmitted diseases! But I am prone to cold sores (the herpes simplex virus), and you can’t have a cold sore when undergoing Fraxel, so I was put on a five-day prescription of Valtrex to ward off any potential outbreak. I was mortified picking it up at the drug store, lest the pharmacist think I had herpes!).

After taking the meds, I had an hour to just sit and wait for the gel and Tylenol to take effect. I read my book and tried not to get nervous (I was … I have an incredibly low pain threshhold, and all the research I’d read online said that Fraxel was quite painful). At exactly 3 p.m., I washed the gel off my face and lay down on the examination table. The technician applied little goggles to my eyes, so I wouldn’t be blinded by the laser. Then she applied another cream, called a ‘tracking’ cream, all over my face — I assumed it was so she could “track” where the laser had gone and what areas it covered, so nothing got missed. She gave me what looked like a vacuum cleaner hose, except instead of sucking in dirt, it blew out icy cold air, and told me to hold that in my hands and manoeuvre it along my face in tandem with where the laser was moving, to cool down my skin as the laser touched it.

And then the torture began.

As I mentioned, I have a very, VERY low pain threshold. But somehow, I have a tattoo. I have my ears pierced. I’ve had blood tests and needles. But none of those experiences prepared me for the unique and exquisite pain that is laser skin resurfacing.

The technician started on my right jawbone and did a series of vertical, one-way movements with the laser up towards my cheekbone. The only way I can describe it is to say the sensation is like a razor blade being dragged across your skin. Then she did my chin (I had to bite my lower lip to stretch the skin on my chin taut), then below my nose (again, I had to bite my upper lip to stretch the skin there taut), then my actual nose, my left jawbone and finally my forehead. I didn’t count, but I would say there were about 50 to 75 repetitions. But somehow, I got through them all! It actually started off not too bad, even for a big baby like me, but by the time she finished on my left temple, it was starting to hurt (she said the left side always hurts more than the right for some reason), even with me blasting away with the vacuum cleaner of cold air.

The worst part was that the Tylenol 3s did not kick in. They did nothing. Not. A. Thing. And I even took two. Now, this well may be because I occasionally suffer from really bad headaches, and I normally take up to four or sometimes five extra-strength Tylenol at a time to cope with them. Perhaps my system has built up immunity to Tylenol? Although, extra-strength Tylenol and Tylenol 3 have very different drugs in them, and I had never taken Tylenol 3 before — not even when I had my wisdom teeth out. This is something I’ll ask my dermatologist about before my next Fraxel procedure.

I thought we were finished, and I was so proud of myself for getting through it, but then the technician told me the bad news: we were only halfway through. Now, instead of doing vertical, one-way movements, she was going to repeat the entire process but do *horizontal* one-way movements. By this point, the temperature of my face had gotten quite hot (the laser is white-hot) and the pain went from bad to worse to practically excruciating by the time she was doing the left side of my face. In fact, my arms and hands were shaking so badly from the pain, I could no longer hold the vacuum hose and she had to hold it for me.

When it was all over — 25 minutes in total for the whole thing, beginning to end — I had to wash off the tracking gel. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognise myself. My face looked like a tomato. Totally swollen, particularly around my cheekbones (my eyes looked shrunken in my head), and red-hot in both colour and to the touch.

I was given two ice packs that I applied to my face to try and numb/cool the swelling. After 3 hours, my face was still red, still swollen (though not as bad) and still tender. It itched a little bit, but not much. It felt and looked like a really bad sunburn, but the pain went away after a few hours and I even went out to the movies that night. I went to bed that night thinking it looked bad but, not *awful* and that I probably wouldn’t even need to take the three to five days to work from home, as my dermatologist strongly recommended.

When I woke up the next morning, I had a completely different reaction. I tried to sleep “sitting up”, as the after-care pamphlet suggested, but during the course of the night I tossed and turned and woke up in my usual position, on my back. Looking in the mirror, I was horrified — my entire face had swelled up again, and my eyes were almost swollen shut. They looked like black eyes, but without the purple discolouration. I couldn’t see as well out of my right eye, because it had swelled up so much.

I frantically consulted the after-care pamphlet, only to discover that this is pretty normal, and the swelling should go down after three to five days. Now I understand why my dermatologist urged me to work from home — not only am I swollen, but I was advised not to wear make-up, as the idea is to keep the skin as clean and unclogged as possible whilst it heals. I was to use Cetaphyl cleanser and moisturiser — nothing else — for the next 10 days.

I will be going back in six weeks for round two … I’m very anxious because the technician told me she used a “low” setting this time, because it was my first time. Next time, she will need to use a much higher setting. I told her there was no way I could endure that again, not with just Tylenol 3s that apparently don’t even work for me (granted, everyone is different), so she recommended speaking to my dermatologist about a prescription for Percocet, which will knock me out for the treatment. But despite the pain, I’m very excited to follow this through, because I really think it will be worth it in the end.

Photo by nyki_m