Proper Understanding of Scar Laser Treatment After Breast Reduction!

The biggest challenge in breast reduction surgery is the long scar.

Plastic surgery medical staff take pride in their suturing technique, so at least immediately after surgery, most sutures are neat and well made when it comes to the scar.

The problem is that the scar you first thought would remain only as a thin line changes over time.

In some cases, pigmentation develops or redness persists for too long, and in others, raised hypertrophic scars can appear.

In fact, many people have a kind of fantastical expectation about scar treatment and laser treatment.

Rather than expecting that a scar can be erased, I ask that you understand laser treatment as a way to reduce a scar.

There is no way in the world to erase a scar!

If there were such a method, there would be no one in the world with scars.

However, just because scars cannot be removed does not mean there is no way to improve them.

Many places currently use various lasers for scar treatment, and there are also many places showing good results.

Since there are many people who are much more knowledgeable in this field than I am, I think it would be better to refer to other medical professionals’ videos for an overall explanation of laser scar treatment.

Today, however, I will talk only about how scars after breast reduction surgery can be reduced through laser treatment.

First, among the types of scars that appear after reduction surgery, three representative ones can be listed.

Hypertrophic scars

Dark pigmentation

Red scars

These three can be considered the main types.

These symptoms can appear separately, but they more often occur together, so depending on which symptom is more severe, the treatment focus is determined according to how the scar is being treated.

The representative lasers used to treat this are:

Fraxel laser

1064 laser

532 laser

Fraxel laser is a laser that finely resurfaces scars to make them flat and even, and depending on the treatment mode, it can selectively act only on the dermal layer. Therefore, it can break up abnormal fibrous tissue and induce normal collagen production.

It is used relatively early after surgery and mainly targets hypertrophic scars, but apart from these hypertrophic scars, during the scar maturation process, partial dark pigmentation may appear or the scar may become red overall.

In such cases, rather than a Fraxel laser that simply resurfaces the skin, it is better to use lasers that act selectively according to the depth and color of each treatment area.

In general, 1064 lasers and 532 lasers are used often.

Because the two lasers play complementary roles depending on treatment depth and pigment target, it is best to combine and selectively use them according to the scar condition.

The numbers 1064 and 532 refer to the laser wavelength.

Simply put, the larger the number, the deeper the laser energy penetrates.

Therefore, the 1064 laser acts on fibrous tissue in a deeper dermal layer, while the 532 laser acts on pigments mainly located in the superficial layer.

In particular, because the 532 wavelength shows good treatment effects on red pigment, it can be said to be a laser specialized for treating proliferative blood vessels.

However, in fact, the treatment depth and pigment-specific responses of these lasers are conceptual in practice and cannot be completely absolute, so the treatment actions of each laser I just mentioned differ to some extent, but you can think of them as having many overlapping areas.

Today, we looked at laser treatment after breast reduction surgery.

The difficult part of laser treatment is that there is no fixed treatment routine. No matter how much technology advances and how good the equipment becomes, each person has a different basic skin tone and different characteristics. And even for the same person, the condition of the scar changes from one treatment time to another.

So at each treatment session, finding the appropriate laser type and energy can be difficult.

Simply put, stronger treatment can produce greater effects but also more side effects, while weaker treatment has fewer side effects but makes it difficult to expect much effect.

Therefore, rather than being too impatient and trying to get a big effect in one session, it is better to receive treatment several times with a calm mindset.

Rather than completely removing a scar, it is better to think in terms of improving it.

Thank you.