Justine Park, MDMen are one of the fastest growing segments of the minimally invasive aesthetic procedure market for several years now. One of the areas that men are seeking aesthetic treatment is with lasers. Lasers are a fun, and what I consider, essential, part of my dermatology practice, allowing me to offer optimal treatments for certain conditions, such as brown spots, red spots and wrinkles. My male patients often have concerns about redness, large pores, acne scars, wrinkles and overall, looking older. It is important to understand that each laser has a specific set of conditions that it treats best, others that it treats as well and others that it cannot treat. Therefore, in any given dermatology practice, not one laser is going to address all of the needs that your patients have.
For redness reduction, I use a 1064nm long-pulsed NdYAG by Cutera. It is great at reducing overall redness and can be used with a different setting to zap small vessels anywhere on the body.
For brown freckles, I recommend treatment with our intense pulsed light machine.
For wrinkles, I recommend fractional CO2 laser treatments. Expect at least a one-week recovery from this one!
Before and after a single laser treatment. Notice the youthful appearance of the skin after this simple in-office procedure.
One treatment alone can significantly improve unwanted acne scars.Like all patients, men often have concerns about pain or discomfort from the procedure and the time needed for recovery. Depending on the laser used, the treatment may require topical or sometimes, anesthesia delivered by injections to the treated area. However, numbing is not generally used at all for most of the lasers treatments that I do. I do not recommend any numbing for our redness reducing laser or our intense pulsed light laser. These treatments are intended to be done without anesthesia. There is a cooling tip on the laser device that makes the procedure more comfortable. Slight discomfort is all that is usually reported. Recovery usually ranges from a few days to 2 weeks. Depending on the type of laser procedure, the recovery will vary in terms of how “bad” you will look.
An interesting observation I have made over the years is that my male patients who receive laser treatments are often some of the most satisfied patients. With appropriate counseling and setting of expectations, they often report to me that the treatments have really helped them look and feel better about themselves. They are happy to do the recommended maintenance treatments on schedule as well.
One last note about male patients is that I often find that male patients have an interest in laser treatments, but quickly give up on the discussion because they do not consider it acceptable to care about how they look. They may also be hesitant to appear vain. It is sad that in our culture, male patients may not get treatments that can help them be more confident because it is not socially accepted for men to care about their appearance. This is changing with younger generations though, which is a welcome change in perspective.
I hope that this short blog helps to clarify some of the most common questions you might have about laser treatments and that you will come seek one of our providers out for a consultation today!