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Immediately after treatment:
- During and immediately after treatment, you will likely experience mild-to-moderate pain.
- No special dressings are necessary.
- After treatment, it is important to avoid sun exposure and apply sunscreen.
Days and weeks after treatment:
- In rare cases, patients may experience skin lightening, spider veins, and thinning of the skin.
- Some patients develop purple/red discolored spots on the skin (also known as purpura or “blood spots”) after treatment. These spots are due to mild bleeding under the skin and gradually disappear over a few days or weeks.
- Additionally, some patients develop shallow open sores at the treatment site, sometimes with crusting. These sores, which may appear in the first few days after treatment, may last up to 2-3 weeks. Your doctor may prescribe a topical antibiotic to treat these sores.
Longer term:
- Skin lightening and spider veins are rare side effects but can be long term.
- Some patients experience skin darkening (hyperpigmentation). This should gradually disappear within 2 months to one year.
- Skin thinning (atrophy) is another potential long-term side effect and may take longer (1 year or more) to disappear, and in some cases may even be permanent.
- It is important to use sunscreen whenever the skin is exposed to the sun until you are completely finished with all of your treatment sessions and your skin has healed from your final treatment session.
- Unfortunately, raised and keloid scars are known to recur (come back) after treatment. Keloid scars are particularly likely to recur.