San Diego Facial Plastic Surgery

Active FX and Total FX are two of our most popular San Diego skin rejuvenation procedures. The reasons for this are that these procedures are quick, involve minimal downtime (generally one week at the most) and are effective. Patients achieve often dramatic improvement in wrinkles, loose skin around the cheeks, eyes, and jowls, and acne scars. Despite these great results, it is important for patients to understand that great looking skin requires maintenance. If bad habits resume after your laser skin resurfacing treatment, the brown spots, wrinkles, and crepey skin will also return.

Most of our patients pre-treat their skin with retinol and hydroquinone based products as recommended by our aestheticians. Medical grade products have a higher concentration than regularly found in the drug store, and act to inhibit hyperpigmentation (dark spots) and also allow a deeper, more effective penetration of the laser.

In addition to pre-treatment, we recommend avoiding direct sun exposure and using a high quality sunscreen with UV-a and UV-b protection.

Approximately one to two weeks following Active FX, patients are generally ready to resume their skin care, which at this time can be re-tailored to their current skin condition. The goal at this point is to maintain the result of the laser treatment, and also to build upon that with even more improvement over time. Having a great team of aestheticians and an aesthetic RN allows us partner with our patients for long term great looking skin!

Labels: active fx, laser resurfacing san diego, laser skin resurfacing, medical spa, skin care after laser

Our San Diego Plastic Surgery office has performed hundreds of fractionated CO2 laser resurfacing treatments using the Lumenis Ultrapulse laser. Initially, the technology was called "Active FX" and allowed us to achieve dramatic skin tightening, wrinkle reduction and removal, and removal of sun damage- with a quick recovery of 7-10 days and minimal side effects. This has been an excellent adjunct to our practice, with about 75% of our facelift patients also undergoing an Active FX or Total FX treatment to achieve a "3-dimensional" improvement.

The company later introduced "Deep FX" which was an additional treatment head for the laser allowing a smaller spot size with deeper penetration. By combining Active and Deep FX, one achieves a "Total FX" skin resurfacing which allows resolution of deeper lines and scars as well as more superficial brown spots .

Total FX is our treatment of choice for darker skinned patients (Asian, Hispanic) with acne scars, as well as younger patients with moderate sun damage and lines.

Older skin is often best treated with an aggressive Active FX, or combination of Total and Active FX.

Labels: active fx, laser skin resurfacing, san diego, total fx