Skin Care & Laser Resurfacing

Everyone wants beautiful skin. The youthful unblemished skin you had as a child is the ideal. But sun damage, aging, wrinkles, acne, or scars, detract from the natural beauty of your skin. Extensive sun damage multiplies your risk-the possibility of skin cancer. Laser resurfacing can correct most of this damage. In order to understand long term skin care after laser resurfacing, it is important to understand what ages your skin in the first place. Some of the things that age your skin are genetic factors, the environment such as radiation from the sun, and general lifestyle related external factors such as hydration, tanning, and smoking.

Smoking creates wrinkles, not to mention other health problems, because the chemicals, and carbon monoxide breathed in constrict the capillaries that carry nutrients and oxygen to the skin. This lack of oxygen and nutrients interferes with the production of new collagen. After laser resurfacing, as with any procedure, it is critical that oxygen gets to the skin to heal it. The same chemicals also prevent your body from removing harmful “free-radicals” from your body. Without going into a biochemistry lesson, suffice it to say these free-radicals create the chemical conditions that break down the skin’s structural support and decrease its elasticity, resilience, and suppleness on an microscopic level. Exposure to the sun also causes free-radical damage.

Overexposure to the sun not only causes your skin to age by free-radical damage, but by drying it out too. The water that evaporates from the skin leaves it dry. Drinking lots of water is the real way to hydrate your skin. To help hold moisture in, it is generally helpful to moisturize after your daily bath or shower. It’s not that oil based moisturizers can get into the epidermis and moisturize it, the actual function is to hold the moisture in. After laser resurfacing, it becomes important to hold your skin’s moisture in, and this why you are instructed to use a thin layer of petroleum protection, such as Aquaphor or Vaseline or even Crisco. And yes, this is probably why Cher looked so odd at the airport recently, a couple of weeks after laser resurfacing. If you saw the photograph, you may have also noticed she wore sunglasses and a big hat. It is critical to keep the radiation from the sun off your skin after laser resurfacing. You must wear a high SPF sunscreen to protect your skin, and like Cher, a wide brimmed hat and sunglasses! Fortunately, these are also fashion statements and fun accessories to play with!

Smooth, healthy, attractive skin, however you say it, “good looking” skin is one of the most desirable features in our society, and a foundation for the rest of your appearance. Arkansas patients desiring laser resurfacing at Little Rock Cosmetic Surgery Center can achieve these results. Rest assured that you will be instructed thoroughly on after care as well.

Call the Melinda at the front desk to set up your consultation 501-227-0700