Can you explain what this is? Is it still surgery?
Question: I keep hearing about something called laser blepharoplasty. Can you explain what this is? Is it still surgery?
Answer: A laser blepharoplasty is a relatively standard blepharoplasty procedure that simply uses a CO2 Laser to make some of the incisions and to help with coagulation. I have not seen any good head-to-head studies showing a significant advantage using a laser and, in fact, theoretically the CO2 Laser will actually cause surrounding thermal injury that would be unwanted in most circumstances and I, therefore, continue to employ a more standard approach of using a very fine scalpel for skin incisions and super sharp scissors for any tissue treatment under the skin. A jeweler’s forceps bipolar cautery is used to precisely control any very minor bleeding and this, therefore, limits the surrounding injury and tissue damage and, in my opinion, allows for a faster recovery. The majority of my patients look quite good in three to four days when their sutures are removed.
