Understanding Laser Skin Resurfacing and Intense Pulsed Light Treatments
There are many inherent characteristics of laser that make it ideal for use in medical field, although at the onset of the invention of laser by Thomas H. Maiman, he did not conceive of laser as a medical equipment. However, as laser equipment improved, medical laser likewise improved, and like a tiptoeing turtle, laser equipment slowly found its way into various surgical rooms around the world. At present, medical laser equipment has supplanted the scalpel as the primary tool in surgeries. Moreover, the number of applications of laser in medicine is arithmetically increasing, attesting to the fact that laser is indeed a practicable equipment for many surgical procedures.
One characteristic that makes laser practicable in medical surgeries is its photo-ablative effect. This characteristic of laser allows it to precisely cut and ablate tissues and cells without necessarily affecting the adjacent tissues and cells. In the case, for example, of laser skin resurfacing treatment or fractional laser treatment, laser targets specific areas of the skin to remove the effects and symptoms of aging like wrinkles, textures, and spots. The fractional laser treatment creates highly-controlled wounds on the skin surface in order to create new cells on the damaged skin surface. This procedure is designed to counteract or reverse the signs and symptoms of ageing on the skin. The fractional resurfacing treatment is usually done using CO2 laser or Er:YAG laser. The Erbium laser is usually operated at 2,940 nm, while the CO2 laser operates at 10,600 nm. These two types of lasers are ideal for treating fibroblasts and deep dermis by inducing wounds on the targeted skin surface, and stimulating the production of elastin and collagen that are responsible for the thickness and renewed turgor of the skin. Per square inch, these lasers can deliver several thousands of minute points of laser light to the targeted square inch of skin. Healthy skin are usually left between those burned areas to allow for shortened period of recovery from the treatment. Furthermore, surgeons can readily customize the procedure according to the skin types of the patients and the area being treated upon. Lastly, these two types of lasers are pulsed lasers, meaning the heat produced by these lasers comes out in pulses, allowing the area to cool down every after pulse.
Another therapy for renewing the turgor of the skin and rejuvenating the skin surface is that of the intense pulse light (IPL). This procedure makes use of flash lamps in order to create high intensity light that are filtered to create the desired range of light. This procedure is designed to treat various skin diseases such as acne, vascular lesions, dyschromia, melisma, and rosacea. This procedure is non-invasive unlike those of Fractional laser which is minimally-invasive. Likewise, this procedure is non-ablative and thus does not cause burns and ablation on the skin tissues. IPL is considered to be effective in treating certain types of skin problems like those of skin pigmentations but produces less positive results for wrinkle removal treatment. The procedure however is very much safe and quickly done over with. Moreover, the level of discomfort involved in the procedure is highly tolerable.

















