Age spots, brown spots, red skin, and blotchiness – laser photorejuvenation has a long track record of treating this kind of aging and sun damage safely and effectively.

But when a series of laser photorejuvenation treatments costs about $2,500, you want to make sure you’re getting great treatments.

What can you do before you embark on a series to ensure that you get the best possible results?

Here are my tips on getting great laser treatments rather than average or poor ones:

Now let’s go through these.

A great laser PR/IPL treatment starts with the communication process. A good office:

I think the best offices have the consultations done by the people who will be treating you. They know the treatments and do them, so they are the best to consult with you on your goals and possible results.

An average to poor office, by contrast, will be far more eager in booking you as a customer and getting you in and out. Often the consultations are done by well-trained sales people rather than the medical professionals who will be treating you.

A good treatment will usually be comprehensive in that it will treat your whole face, or your whole neck, or your whole chest. Two exceptions to this might be treating the veins around your nose or if you are under 30. Some lower quality offices will want to give you lots of spot treatments.

Some spas also attempt to lure you in with a very low price quote. But that quote is often for one spot treatment only. And one spot treatment won’t get you very far at all.

A good office will also be available for questions both before and after your treatment and will give you good follow-up care. A mediocre office may not be as eager to invest the time in that kind of communication.

A great treatment uses devices that are customizable in order to target specific issues of a particular patient. A mediocre office, on the other hand, will tend to have devices that are more "point and shoot" so that a relatively untrained laser technician can do the same kind of treatment on all the patients.

For example, our medical practice uses a Lumenis One device for its PR laser treatments. The Lumenis One allows us to change settings quite easily so we can target specific issues. Other devices, even ones by the same manufacturer, such as the Quantum device, do not allow for easy settings changes. So the provider cannot customize the treatment easily.

Some medi-spas prefer the point-and-shoot as a kind of one-size-fits-all approach. They can then hire someone with no medical education and have them laser away without a lot of supervision. But lasers can cause burns and permanent scars.

So my sixth tip is to get your laser PR from someone with some experience and some medical education and training. Lasers are powerful devices, and you want someone with some medical knowledge and experience with skin.

Last, a great treatment involves treating the whole patient dermatologically. In the rare event of a complication, your laser office should be able to treat that.

Most patients don’t simply come in for one series of PR treatments. They usually have some goals for their total skin health and beauty. Ideally, your laser office can you achieve many or all of your goals.

Link to Dr. Irwin's Guide to IPL and Photorejuvenation Laser Treatments

Link to Dr. Irwin's Video Demonstration of IPL Photorejuvenation Laser Treatment