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This is a common question and misconception. Like many skin conditions, the goal of laser stretch mark removal is improvement rather than complete removal. Although there are many practitioners that utilize more than one laser to treat stretch marks, it is misleading to suggest that stretch marks can be completely removed – regardless of the type of technology used.
The one exception is colored stretch marks. Red and brown colored stretch marks can often be returned to the same color as the surrounding skin, provided there is no damage to the texture of the skin.
However, knowing that there are viable options for improvement of a permanent condition like stretch marks allows many patients to seek treatments like laser stretch mark treatment anyway. We have found that laser technology is the most effective treatment for stretch marks versus using topical products. Because stretch marks are caused when there is damage to the skin/tissue, using expensive creams and ointments typically does not offer any beneficial outcomes. Lasers differ from these types of treatments because they use light to create a themal inury. During the healing process, the body brings new collagen to the area, thus decreasing the visibility, texture and/or color of the stretch marks.
Whether your concern is the color, texture, or both of your stretch marks – class IV medical lasers offer a good option for improvement.
Living with acne can be tough. Its unpredictable nature, potential for scarring, and embarrassment it causes make it one of the hardest skin conditions to have. Celibre Medical has a safe, effective and targeted acne laser treatment program. We’ve helped many people just like you manage their acne without the use of harsh, drying topical products and medications.
Through the years, we’ve found that our program works for those with milia as well. Milia are those small, white bumps that never turn into red pimples, but never go away either. They are (in essence) clogged pores.
We discuss our options in detail with each acne and milia patient, and tailor a program that suits your particular situation. On average, our patients see improvement in their skin after just 1-2 photodynamic therapy treatments.
We have put together a presentation of one of our acne patients here for you to understand what types of treatments we offer for acne and see the kind of results that are possible:
This patient is a 13-year-old girl struggling with moderate inflammatory papules and pustules as well as numerous comedones and milia. We decided on four treatments with our Medlite q-switched laser along with weekly Blu-U light treatments to target her inflammatory acne and settle it down first.
Then, we transitioned her to Aramis laser treatments for the next half of her initial acne treatment program. As you can see from her photos, at this point, we were making good progress.
This patient is a lot like many of the acne patients. We have a broad array of treatment options for acne that includes several lasers and light therapy that specifically targets the causes of acne. In addition to what we’ve mentioned here, sometimes we’ll suggest a certain skin care regimen or series of chemical peels at the start of your acne laser treatment program to help jump-start the process of clearing your skin.
We know that acne and acne treatments can be slow and frustrating. We’ve designed an acne laser treatment program that delivers consistent results. We have many different options that can be used individually or together to help you get the clear skin you want safely in the shortest amount of time.
Potential tattoo removal patients frequently ask this question when they call our facility, especially those who have limited time due to work constraints. While we would love be able to quote exact tattoo removal prices over the phone, in most cases it is impossible for a number of reasons.
The total cost of laser tattoo removal treatments is dependent on the cost per treatment AND the total number of treatments. We recommend our patients to visit us for a free tattoo removal consultation before we provide estimates because it is not possible to accurately assess the number of laser treatments required for tattoo removal over the phone. The biggest mistake we find our patients (and potential patients) make regarding laser tattoo removal prices is that they ask how much one treatment is rather than focusing on how many treatments the whole process will take and whether or not they will get complete removal of the tattoo.
We often treat patients that have had 2, 3, or 5 treatments at another facility only to come to ours because of lack of results. The problems may lie in the type of laser being used for the tattoo removal or the expertise of the practitioner doing the treatments. In either case, these patients have received subpar tattoo removal treatments (in most cases for cheap tattoo removal prices) and by the time they reach us are essentially starting their treatment program over. We strongly urge our patients to inquire about the experience of the facility and practitioner in providing laser tattoo removal treatments, as well as the specific type of tattoo removal lasers they will use.
Another reason we ask patients to visit the facility is that we want to have a look at the color and quality of the tattoo ink. Poor inks degrade more quickly and therefore require less laser treatments. Colors like orange, yellow, pale blue and green are more difficult to remove and require more laser treatments. For these reasons, it is always better for us to see the tattoo in person before making an accurate assesment of the what the total laser tattoo removal prices would be.
In summary, Celibre Medical bases its tattoo removal prices on the type of tattoo, the time required for the treatment, the color of the tattoo, the ink quality, and the laser used in the treatment. It is more effective to address all these factors in person rather than over the phone. In general, our laser tattoo removal costs range between $150 and $400 per treatment.
If you’ve been doing any laser research recently, then you’ve probably come across the term “FDA-approved”. We hear this phrase over and over in our industry as it is meant to give credibility to the latest and greatest cosmetic laser technology. But, what does the term really mean? How does it impact your decision to have a certain treatment or procedure? Or should it?
First let us inform you that almost every laser manufacturing company and every laser practitioner that uses the device will tell you that it is “FDA-approved”. This tells you that the device has met certain requirements of the FDA—the United States Food and Drug Administration. It does not tell you, however, how effective the device is at treating a particular condition.
What are the requirements of the FDA for approval? They can vary, but for the most part, for a laser, the manufacturer must submit an application to the FDA stating that they intend to market the device to treat a certain condition. They also must submit one or more clinical trials done where the laser proves safe and effective in treating the skin condition indicated in the study. Only after these requirements have been met will the FDA approve a device.
So, what’s the issue? Well, the FDA-approval process has a couple inherently large flaws. First, the physicians who perform the clinical trials for the devices are generally compensated to do so by the device’s manufacturing company. They often get to use the device for free, and as a result, they are naturally biased to demonstrate positive results. This problem isn’t just in the medical device industry…it happens in all areas of medicine. Anything that needs approval by the FDA, including medications and vaccines.
The second problem is that approval is more reliant upon device safety than treatment efficacy. Take this example: if a clinical trial for a laser demonstrates that only one out of 10 people treated with it showed improvement and none of the 10 had any side effect or harm from the device, then that may still pass FDA standards. This means that the manufacturer could advertise the device as being “effective” for the condition, even though the rates of success in the clinical trials were very low. Unfortunately for consumers, the FDA looks more closely at safety than it does at efficacy.
This brings us to our final point: FDA-approved is a misnomer. The FDA simply grants “clearance” to a device. Clearance to the manufacturer to market it and sell it for use on the public. The FDA doesn’t even recognize the term “FDA-approved” because it implies that it approves of the use of a device for a particular condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of advocating for the use of the device for a condition, the FDA simply allows it to be used. Advocating and allowing are two very different things, and patients need to understand the difference when considering a treatment with an “FDA-approved” device.
No matter the semantics, the term “FDA-approved” is widely used and accepted by most laser practitioners and patients. It is important, though, to understand what that term really means. It is more of an indication of the safety of a device rather than its efficacy.
This is where consumer research and education become so important. You simply can’t rely on advertising to tell you if something works or not. You need to ask questions, be informed and learn all you can about your condition and the device that you are considering for treatment.
Pore size is partly determined by genetics. Some have large pores and some have small. Pores ize is also affected by age and generally older patients with less pliable skin will have larger pores. There are options to help improve the appearance of large pores and lasers are one.
At Celibre Medical, we use more than one laser to help improve pore size. Ultimately, stimulating the production of new collagen using heat from laser treatments is key to keeping the skin healthy, firm and elastic – all of which will contribute to improving pore size. To stimulate the production of collagen we use the Sction Profractional (fractional resurfacing) laser, the Palomar Q-Yag V (q-switched Nd:Yg) laser and the Quantel Medical Aramis (Erbium Glass) laser. All will help in the process of renewing skin via collagen stimulation.
Skin care products are also very important for the reduction of pore size and we encourage patients to consider either Retin A or Glycolic acid products during and after their laser treatment program.
Your eyes say a lot about you. They can reveal your emotions, your level of attentiveness, as well as the amount of sleep you had last night. Your eyes are a focal point of your face and whether you realize it or not, they communicate a wealth of information to those around you. It’s no surprise that the eyes are a top cosmetic concern for patients like you. One of the most common questions our patients have is about improving the wrinkles around the eyes.
Your eyelid skin is extremely thin and delicate. This is why it’s one of the first areas of your face to be adversely affected by age. It thins just like the rest of our skin, so it’s quick to sag, crease, droop and wrinkle. If you’ve researched eye rejuvenation at all, you know that products such as Botox, Dysport and fillers like Restylane and Juvederm can all help reduce the signs of age around the eyes. But sometimes these treatments aren’t enough. To really repair and rejuvenate the eyelid skin, laser resurfacing is necessary.
Here at Celibre Medical, we offer Sciton Profractional laser resurfacing around the eyes. This treatment works by precisely creating thousands of pinpoint, microscopic perforations in the skin. The laser energy does this by heating the skin by targeting water within the skin cells. By carefully creating these microscopic wounds, we force the body into healing, which produces new collagen and healthier looking skin. A specific technique we use is called “coagulation”, and just like it sounds, it heats up the tissue around the area of the laser injury. This second type of injury is more indirect, but it creates a tightening effect, especially in the thin skin under the eyes. The overall effect after treatment is tighter, firmer, younger and smoother looking skin under the eyes.
Fractional laser resurfacing is a great tool for dramatic improvement of eyelid wrinkles. It is often combined with other treatments (like Botox, Dysport, Restylane) to enhances results! There are risks involved in treating the sensitive and delicate eyelid skin with powerful lasers, so make sure that your laser practitioner is expertly trained and has plenty of experience to ensure the safety of your eyes as well as fantastic results.
Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD) is a devastating medical condition that is on the rise. The National Women’s Health Institute reports that it affects one out of every 10 women of childbearing age. While no one is exactly sure what causes PCOD, we know that it causes major hormonal imbalances. Women with PCOS have too much androgen (male hormone) and insulin (regulates blood sugar). These two factors cause the major symptoms of PCOD: infertility and menstrual problems, obesity, acne, skin changes (skin tags and darkening of the creases), as well as thinning hair on the scalp and excess facial hair (hirsutism).
Although there is no cure for PCOD, treatments are aimed at restoring the normal balance of hormones and fertility. Often, these treatments can’t help some of the physical symptoms of PCOD, especially excess facial hair. Women with PCOD struggle to control excess, coarse, dark facial hair, which can negatively impact self-esteem, confidence and the ability to function personally and professionally.
Clinical research has shown that treating PCOD patients with laser hair removal (along with other therapies) can be extremely effective and helpful. Laser hair removal offers hope and encouragement to women with PCOD because it helps them feel more feminine and less self-conscious. And the results are permanent!
If you’re suffering with PCOD or know someone who is, laser hair removal can be life-changing. As with any laser hair removal treatment, make sure your laser practitioner is experienced and skilled and has the right equipment for your skin color.
Laser Hair Removal Before and After Photos
Many patients don’t realize how quickly and effectively class IV medical lasers can completely resolve spider veins without any downtime. Red, purple and blue spider veins are all treatable with lasers. Even darker skin types may be safely treated for spider vein removal with long-pulsed Yag lasers.
For most spider vein removal patients, a treatment plan of 3 to 4 is average. If a patient has very large areas or large veins being treated, a series of six laser treatments may be recommended for optimal results. Patient compliance with post-treatment recommendations is critical in enhancing and maintaining spider vein removal results. In most situations, patients are pleased to see obvious progress after each and every spider vein removal treatment.
Class IV medical lasers are a good option to consider for the removal of spider veins and 3 to 4 laser treatments is a very realistic estimate of how many visits it will take to accomplish the goal.
Keloid scars are a difficult problem to have. If you suffer with keloids, you’ve probably asked at least one doctor what can be done to help. We’ll bet that you were told that they are hard to treat. While this is true to some extent, treatment of keloids is not impossible. However, it’s important for you to understand that complete removal may not be the end goal. Often, the treatments for keloids help shrink or soften them, making them less noticeable.
What makes a keloid hard to treat is that there are two different components that people with them don’t like: the raised, firm texture and the color. There really isn’t one single treatment that can simultaneously tackle both these features, so keloid treatment usually occurs in phases, depending on what bothers you the most.
If the color is what you dislike most, we can use our pulsed dye laser to help with this. However, these lasers target the blood vessels in the keloid, so they only work on red colored scars. Brown colored keloids can be more difficult to treat. At Celibre Medical, we’ve experimented with a few different solutions and we can try one of those that may work best for you.
If the texture is what bothers you the most, steroid injections can help soften and flatten out the scar. These work by breaking down the keloids dense, tough, fibrous tissue. Everyone responds differently to steroids, so the exact number of injections that you will need to see improvement can vary from person to person.
Here at Celibre Medical, we have extensive experience treating keloid scars. We have found through our years of experience that no two are exactly alike. We focus on creating a unique, individualized treatment plan using a variety of tools to help your keloid look as much like normal skin as possible.
* Removing Scars Before and After Photos
You probably had chicken pox when you were a kid; before the vaccination was available, it was almost a certainty of childhood. As a result, you might have one or more deep, pitted or shallow, indented scars. It’s probably safe to assume that you don’t want a permanent memento of your illness–chicken pox scars are often reminders of part of our childhood that we’d just rather forget!
The question of, if, or how we treat chicken pox scars is a frequently asked one in our office. And yes, we can and do treat them. But the exact way that’s best for you can be different based on a few different things. Shallow scars may respond better to laser treatment, and deeper or pitted scarring may be better suited for a surgical approach. Let us explain the process a bit more. There are generally two different approaches to the treatment of chicken pox scars: laser resurfacing or surgical excision of the scar.
Scar removal before and after pictures
Laser resurfacing is a process that removes layers of damaged or scarred skin while heating the deeper layer to produce collagen and make the skin appear firmer and smoother. Another term that fits this type of resurfacing is “ablative” or “fractional” laser resurfacing, because there is skin that is removed or “ablated” by the laser. At Celibre, we provide Erbium fractional resurfacing to improve chicken pox scars. This procedure works best if your scars are shallow. Usually a series of three treatments are required to see good results with this type of scarring.
The other option is surgical excision. This is usually done by a plastic surgeon who removes or “excises” the scar tissue in a single procedure. The net result is trading a deep or pitted scar for a linear one, and this may be a good choice if your scar is large, excessively deep or if you are not a candidate for laser resurfacing of the scar.
There are effective options available for the treatment of unwanted chicken pox scars. The one that’s right for you depends on several considerations. To evaluate your options, it’s best to sit down with someone who’s experienced at treating these types of scars. Call us today for your free evaluation.
Birthmarks come in all shapes, colors, sizes and locations. Many “birthmarks” may not even be visible at birth, but develop in the first few months or years of life. And while many people like their birthmarks, others do not. If you’re someone that doesn’t like having a birthmark, laser medicine has opened the door to significantly reducing the appearance of a birthmark or even removing it altogether!
Brown birthmarks have many different names: café-au-lait spots, nevus of Ota, and congenital nevus are just to name a few. And while each of these types of brown birthmarks looks a bit different from the other, they all have one thing in common: they are made of melanin. Because of this, a very specific, powerful type of laser known as a q-switched laser can be used to help remove them.
Q-switched lasers target melanin. Their energy destroy the melanin-containing cells that make up birthmarks. These cells are then replaced with new ones that do not have the memory of the birthmark. The visual effect is a fading of the birthmark. In many cases, significant fading occurs; in others, the birthmark may disappear entirely.
There are some types of brown birthmarks that should not be treated with q-switched laser. It is always a good idea to see a dermatologist and have your birthmark evaluated before having any laser removal treatments performed. However, if you get the green light to treat, birthmark laser removal can be a safe and very effective option to get rid of your birthmark permanently!
In the 1990’s or early 2000’s, when you heard the term “laser resurfacing” it meant one thing: a major procedure loaded with common side effects and a rather lengthy recovery. The CO2 laser was the only technology available for this procedure and it was “full field” which meant that the skin at the treated area was completely removed. This version of resurfacing was not an option for anyone with darker skin types (colors) meaning that for many patients, there was no option at all!
Thankfully, laser resurfacing is much different! In 2005, fractional laser technology was introduced. This new type of laser resurfacing revolutionized the procedure and addressed many of the problems and limitations of the earlier version.
Fraxel was the first “fractional laser resurfacing” technology. Fractional treatments mean pretty much what they sound like: only a fraction of the entire skin surface is treated. While you might think this sounds like a less effective treatment, it isn’t! In fact, the researchers developing this technology found that they could get comparable results with fractional treatments to full field resurfacing without many of the side effects.
So, how does fractional laser resurfacing work? It creates a grid-like pattern of microscopic perforations in the skin. The “density” of these perforations is customizable and means that a lighter treatment may mean only treat 10% of the skin, while a more aggressive treatment can be more on the order of 50 – 70%. The technology works sort of like passing the laser beam of light through a filter (like a strainer) that divides one single laser beam into lots of little tiny ones.
What happens when these beams of light hit the skin? They are transformed to heat energy, which precisely injures the skin by vaporizing it! This process creates an injury which forces your skin to recover. As you heal, you’ll form new collagen and elastin in your deeper skin as well as new skin surface. The overall effect is smoother, tighter, brighter and clearer looking skin!
Here are the major advantages of fractional laser resurfacing:
Overall, fractional laser resurfacing is an excellent treatment if you are looking to treat acne scarring, fine lines and wrinkles, want refinement of large pore size, and/or overall skin rejuvenation. Call us today to learn more about the Scition Profractional laser.
Laser tattoo removal is a safe and effective method for removing unwanted tattoos. Unfortunately, the process may take numerous treatments, even when done correctly. Patients often have to wait a period of 1-2 years to complete the process because of the time it takes the body to remove tattoo ink that has been broken down during a laser treatment.
Before Treatment Day of Last Treatment 2 Years After Treatment
The expectation we set for our patients at Celibre is that the average tattoo will require between 5 and 15 treatments. The number of treatments depends on the skin type, the type of ink, the laser used, the laser energy used, the skill of the practitioner and the depth of the ink. A common misconception among patients (and some practitioners) is that it is better to use consistently higher laser energies with each treatment to speed the removal process. While it is true that less treatments may be required to completely remove the tattoo when using higher (ablative) energy levels, this method also carries risk. The problem is that using extremely high energy to “carve out” the tattoo ink can lead to scarring or depigmentation (lightening of the skin) at the tattoo site once it is removed. Your skin type will have a large effect regarding the risk of scarring with darker skin types more prone to scarring or depigmentation. At Celibre Medical, we do not perform treatments in this manner because we want to remove the tattoo with no permanent scarring or skin lightening left behind after it is removed.
In some situations, a tattoo may become unresponsive to lasers after repeated treatments because the ink has faded so much as to make it difficult for the laser to interact with the ink. At this point, most patients will continue to observe excellent, continued fading over time as their bodies continue the remove the pigment over time. See photos (there were no laser treatments between the second and third photos, just fading over time).
At Celibre, we utilize two types of Q-switched lasers for tatto removal. Because we use two different machines, we have the ability to access much higher energies (using the Medlite C6) if and when when tattoos become unresponsive due to fading. Although uncommon, tattoos may also become unresponsive to even the most powerful Q-switched lasers. When this happens, our bodies take over to continue the fading process over time.
The term “pigmented lesions” can refer to many different skin conditions. In general, these conditions are commonly known as freckles, age spots, liver spots, sun spots, moles, birthmarks, etc. To understand how laser treatments can be used to treat these conditions, it is important to have a basic understanding of how class IV medical lasers work.
The concept is quite simple – each type of laser is attracted to a specific target area in the skin. The target for the laser is determined by the wavelength of the laser being used. So for these type of pigmented lesions, the lasers are attracted to the melanin (pigment) in the skin. When the thermal energy of the laser treatments interacts with the pigmented lesion, it breaks apart the cells that contain the pigment (melanocytes). Although the treatment is usually short, the process of breaking up and fading the pigment continues for several weeks even after the treatment is over. With repeated laser treatments, the cells containing the pigment in the sun spots, tattoos or birthmarks can be removed and replaced with cells that do not contain the pigment. This is how we can eliminate these unwanted brown spots for good with laser treatments.
Los Angeles sun spot removal laser treatments at www.celibre.com/sun-spots.
Schedule a free Los Angeles liver spot removal consultation at www.celibre.com/contact-list.
Sun damage (Seborrheic Keratosis) before and after laser treatment pictures. More sun spot removal before and after pictures by Celibre Medical at celibre.com/sun-spots-laser-removal-before-after-pictures-photos.
Lori Ishii Haney, RN, MEP-C
Certified Medical Laser Safety Officer
Do you oily skin and notice that your skin’s texture is less than smooth? Or maybe you have Rosacea and the repeated flares of inflammation have made your skin look rough and bumpy with enlarged pores. Many in our industry refer to these changes as “orange peel” skin. No matter how good your skin is, we all notice some textural changes and enlarged pores as we age because of sun exposure.
Orange Peel texture, large pores and lines before and after Erbium Micro Laser Peel and Restylane injections
Many salons, estheticians and medical practitioners will tell you that “orange peel” skin can be treated effectively with microdermabrasion, chemical peels or special skin care products. Because many of these textural changes in the skin stem from the loss of collagen, the treatment options that work best must stimulate it. The only one that does this effectively is class IV medical laser treatments like the laser resurfacing.
This type of laser treatment can reach the deeper layers of skin (the dermis) and trigger your body to make more collagen. This will tighten and firm your skin. Your skin will look smoother and your pores will be smaller. We have found that by combining these types of laser treatments with good, medical grade skin care products, most patients see good, lasting improvement!
Don’t fall for catchy advertising or other gimmicks. While microdermabrasion and peels can produce some result when used correctly, they can only go so far. They don’t have the ability to reach the deeper dermal layers where collagen is produced and stored to give lasting and impressive changes in “orange peel” skin.
