If you are pulling out the big guns with a CO2 laser skin resurfacing treatment, make sure you are seeing a provider who is skilled at—and comfortable with—treating the upper and lower eyelids. The delicate skin around the eyes is often the first area to reveal the effects of collagen breakdown, yet it is frequently skipped over.

Treating the entirety of the face is completely in line with our approach at the clinic: we focus on full-face rejuvenation rather than simply "line chasing."

To understand why this matters, consider a similar scenario with Botox. If a client comes in for a treatment and, after mapping out a full-face plan, we need to make some adjustments based on budget, my recommendation is always to lighten up the dosing everywhere rather than completely omitting areas. Why? Because a face that doesn’t move in one area but retains full motion in others is likely to look unnatural. Furthermore, the laws of physics don’t falter in this scenario. The face will undoubtedly find a way to move, and the untreated muscles will begin to compensate, work harder, and get stronger.

The exact same concept applies to laser resurfacing. A harmonious, natural-looking result requires treating the whole canvas.

The bottom line is that many practices and providers skip the eyes because they are not skilled in intraocular shield placement, which is an absolute necessity for safe upper eyelid CO2 Laser treatments. The laser settings for the eye area are also highly specialized and must be carefully customized for each individual patient.

At Lucid Med Spa, CO2 Laser Eye treatments are one of our specialties, and we are honored to have clients travel from hours away for a treatment with us.

If you are considering any CO2 Laser treatment, my best advice is to always ask which device your practice is using and verify that it is FDA-cleared. Because of the vast improvements in skin resurfacing technology over the past decade, you want to make sure your practice values and offers the latest and greatest technology to ensure the highest-impact results with the least possible downtime. (I look forward to diving deeper into the incredible evolution of CO2 laser technology over the last few decades in a future post!)

At Lucid Med Spa, we are proud to have been the first practice in the Richmond metro area to introduce the Tetra Pro CO2 Laser, which recently won Best Laser, Light, and Energy-Based Device at the Aesthetic Medicine World Congress.