If you are concerned about the health of your skin, especially as you get older, you are in good company. Everyone’s skin degrades a bit with age. The two primary reasons for that are environmental factors and the natural, internal declines in hormones and proteins that occur as people get older. Laser skin tightening procedures can help to reverse some of that skin damage and improve your over all skin health.
The Immediate Impact of Laser Skin Tightening on Your Skin
To understand how using lasers on your skin can improve your skin’s health, you first have to understand that collagen is one of the most important substances in your body in terms of strengthening and fortifying your skin. It’s a protein that your body is capable of producing on its own, but the amounts reduce with age. Since collagen helps to keep skin tight, having a lack of it can cause wrinkles and skin sags.
When you use a laser skincare tool on your skin, the heat from the laser reacts with your existing collagen, causing your skin to contract as the collagen molecules expand and get closer together. That reduces the appearance of wrinkles and sags a bit.
The Ongoing Impact of Tightening Your Skin with Lasers
Of course, there is also an ongoing impact that laser devices can have on your skin. That same process of heating it up and making the existing collagen contract can also trigger your body to make more collagen. However, that’s a slow process. So, you might see minor skin improvements continue up to a couple months after your clinical skincare procedure.
People Who Can Have Laser Skin Tightening Done
For the most part, anyone can have laser skin tightening done. Both women and men have such procedures done all the time. That said, the exact laser treatment you can have may depend a little bit on your skin tone and the over all condition of your skin. Regardless, you should know that laser skin procedures are outpatient procedures that can be done in less than an hour in most cases.
Discomfort Associated with the Laser Procedure
The laser procedure itself might be slightly uncomfortable for you, but it shouldn’t be painful. Even though the laser heats your skin up, and you will feel some of that heat, your technician should use soothing, numbing cream on your skin beforehand. Many laser tools are also setup to produce cold blasts of air that cool the skin in the treated area quickly.
Laser Skin Tightening and Laser Skin Resurfacing Are Two Different Things
Another thing you should definitely be aware of is that laser skin tightening is not laser skin resurfacing. Laser skin tightening targets the collagen below the skin, while laser skin resurfacing actually removes the outer layer of skin to allow healthy skin cells to show through. The former tends to have less risk of side effects, while the latter tends to show immediate results more often.
The bottom line is, if you intend to have laser skin tightening done, you should be prepared for the fact that it won’t necessarily show its effects right away. It may take some time after your session for your skin to start repairing itself. You may also have to go in for multiple sessions, but eventually your over all skin health should improve, as long as you have the treatment done when you have mild to moderate levels of loose skin. If your problems are more severe, surgical intervention may be required.
