An In-Office Look at Cosmetic Lasers

In so many of the DermTV segments we talk about laser treatments, either for broken capillaries on the face or to remove tattoos, liver spots, brown spots, and even hair (permanently). I just thought that it was time for me to show you these lasers to see what they are like.

The first laser that I am going to show you is to remove hair, unwanted hair of course. This is the laser head and it is applied over the area of the body that has the hair. The laser fires repetitively, and as it is doing that, I am watching the screen which tells me how much energy is used and how fast the pulses are coming. It is a very simple straight forward procedure. It may take ten to fifteen minutes to treat a leg or the bikini area and it is very well accepted procedure.

The next laser I would like to show you removes broken capillaries and spider veins, especially from the face. If apply this tip/scope to the front of the laser wand, I can actually see through the scope as the laser energy comes through and I can actually see the blood vessels snap away or just disappear with each laser treatment. I move from place to place, usually on the face, but may even do this on the legs.

Lastly, I want to show you a laser we use for brown spots which can also be used for tattoos. This laser's hand piece is large and rectangular and can be used on large areas of brown pigmentation, liver spots, brown spots on the legs, on the face, on the arms, and again just a nifty device to use for getting rid of those unwanted brown spots.

I want to remind you that whenever we do a laser procedure, we have to protect the patient’s eyes. The patient gets completely opaque glasses. They are actually metal (a non-reflective metal), and the patient wears them on their eyes to protect them from any stray laser energy. I also need to protect my eyes. These are the glasses that I wear during the laser procedure. It protects my eyes from the laser energy as well as enabling me to see the patients.

So that just shows you a little about the lasers and the laser treatments we talk about. I’ll see you tomorrow.