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We’re ringing in the new year dermatology style!  Everyone working at Miller Family Dermatology is getting Halo laser fractional resurfacing.
Barring the discovery of a wormhole or building a flux capacitor, there isn’t much that we can do about the passage of time.  Time happens-New Years and birthdays remind us of that.  I can’t fix that.    I can’t actually stop time, but I do have a treatment that can make your skin younger.

Why does our skin age?

Our skin renews itself every 30 days or so.  So, if it is constantly turning over and replenishing itself.  If its always renewing itself, always turning over so the skin cells are never old, why does skin get old looking?
Ultraviolet Radiation.  Nearly all of the aging that happens to our skin comes from the effects of ultraviolet radiation.  Unless you are a welder, your primary UV exposure is going to be sunlight.  You can usually look at your arm and compare the inner part by your armpit to the outer part that is in the sun to see what sun exposure has done to your skin.  The side that sees more sun will have more brown spots and a rougher texture.  All of that is the effect of sun exposure.

Over time, these changes accumulate in the skin.  Even though the skin is constantly turning over, the brown spots don’t clear on their own.  The sun damaged collagen also doesn’t go away on its own.  The body will degrade and replace normal collagen, but sun damaged collagen doesn’t get turned over by the body.  Instead, it just builds up leading to fine lines, rough texture, and leathery feeling skin.

Renewing your skin with Halo Laser Resurfacing

We were one of the first clinics in the Seattle area and are the only office in Issaquah that offers Halo Laser Resurfacing. This exciting new laser technology combines an ablative laser that targets the top layer of skin and a non-ablative laser that targets collagen. By using laser energy to stimulate turnover of deeper layers of the skin we can get the body to replace the brown spots and damaged collagen that have been building up from sun damage.

Back in the stone age of laser rejuvenation this was done by burning off the entire top layer of skin with CO2 laser.  The results were awesome, but the downtime was terrifying.  Then, came fractionated resurfacing where the laser basically makes small holes in the skin, but leaves at least 60% of the skin intact.  This leads to more rapid healing, but requires more treatments.  The most common fractional lasers out there either target the top layer of skin or target the collagen below.

What makes Halo revolutionary is that it uses two lasers at the same time so that you can treat the top layer and collagen at the same time.  The first laser helps to strip away brown spots and soften fine lines by removing small columns of skin which regenerate into brand new tissue over the course of the next week.  The second laser coagulates collagen deeper underneath the surface.  This damaged collagen ends up being replaced by new, normal collagen.  With other lasers you have to choose which of these you want, but with Halo you get both.

Reduced Downtime with Halo

The most exciting feature is that combining these two lasers into one actually reduces downtime.  Historically, the non-ablative lasers that treat collagen have had less downtime than ablative lasers that treat the top layer.  However, with Halo we have found that poking holes in the top layer of skin with the ablative laser allows the collagen treated by the non-ablative laser to come to the surface more quickly, reducing the overall downtime.

This gallery shows one of our Medical Assistants who had treatment on New Year’s Day (ok, ok, the clinic was technically closed, but some of us were here doing laser treatments on each other).    She is in her 50’s and has had several Halo treatments over the last 3+ years.  These pictures are meant to show you what the downtime is like.  Once more time passes, we will add pictures to show results.  She worked the day after treatment.  She could have worn makeup that day if she had wanted to, but she didn’t.

 

As you can see, the recovery from Halo treatment does not take very long.  You don’t leave bloody, your skin is mostly intact.  It is entirely possible to wear makeup the next day, if desired.

Start the New Year with New Skin from Halo

So it turns out the fountain of youth is actually a laser, and we have the best one in town!   Schedule your treatment today and let us help you to age beautifully!

 

 

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