CO2 Laser Scar Revision in Montreal

It depends on how many scars there are, where they sit, and how many sessions the doctor thinks they need. Full-face acne scar revision is $1,199. A spot treatment for one scar or a small cluster, such as a single surgical scar, is $349. The consultation is $100. Across Montreal, CO2 work runs from around $300 for small areas to $2,500 for full-face deep work, and scar revision sits inside that range.

You get a written quote at your consultation once the doctor has examined your scars and set out the likely number of sessions. Ask for it to include the aftercare products, which are not optional with this treatment.

Plan for 7 to 10 days of social downtime for a full-face Deep session, which is what acne scar revision usually is. Not two days, and not a long weekend. A spot treatment on one scar is a smaller wound and easier to hide, though the treated area goes through the same stages. Scars on the body heal more slowly than the face and hold redness longer, so plan for more time there.

Our exosome protocol makes that window shorter and considerably more comfortable than standard CO2 recovery, but it does not remove it. Book against a quiet stretch of your calendar, and take the time off before you book rather than after.

Days 1 to 3. Significant redness and swelling, and a sensation like a severe sunburn. The heat is most intense in the first few hours. Swelling peaks in the first 48 hours and is usually worst around the eyes when you wake up after a facial session. The skin weeps a clear or yellowish fluid. You will be doing soaks and reapplying ointment constantly, and you will not want to be seen.

Days 4 to 7. The weeping stops and the surface dries into fine bronze or brown micro-crusting with a sandpaper feel. The treated scars look darker and more obvious than before, which surprises people. Then heavy peeling begins, coming away in uneven patches with bright pink new skin underneath. This is the stage people find hardest to look at, and it is also the stage where the exosomes earn their place.

Week 2 onward. Peeling finishes and the pinkness starts fading. Most people are covering what remains with mineral makeup and back to normal life. A pink tone can persist for several weeks to a few months, longer on the body, which is normal.

Months 1 to 6. The actual result builds as collagen fills each column and the scar floor lifts. What you see at two weeks is not the outcome.

Almost always more than one. Each Deep session removes and rebuilds a fraction of the scar and lifts the floor a step, so a series spaced several weeks to a few months apart is the normal course for acne scarring. Rolling and boxcar scars usually respond well, though tethered rolling scars sometimes need subcision alongside the laser; ice-pick scars respond least; and a single mature surgical scar may need less than a scarred face.

The doctor gives you a realistic range at the consultation, because the plan gets adjusted once we see how your skin responds to the first treatment. If that session shows your scars are not responding the way we expected, the plan changes rather than booking more of the same.

Both have defined roles. Our medical director, Dr. Danielle Eiböck, conducts the consultation, assesses your scars and medical history, decides whether you are a candidate, writes the prescription and treatment parameters, and provides medical oversight for your course of treatment. The CO2RE sessions themselves are performed by our fully trained, specialized cosmetic nurse, who works to the plan the doctor has set and adjusts depth and density scar by scar within it. You meet the doctor at consultation and see the nurse for your treatments.

Reach and recovery. Microneedling and RF microneedling create controlled injury with needles, and with heat in the case of RF, and they work well on early or mild texture change and shallow scarring with little or no downtime. They need a course of sessions and they do not remove tissue.

CO2 vaporizes columns of the scar itself and reaches the floor of a boxcar or the band of a surgical scar, which is why it improves scars the gentler devices cannot, and why it takes a week of your life to recover from. If your scarring is mild, the gentler route is the better trade. If you have already tried it and the improvement never held, that is usually the signal you need this instead. Deeper skin tones are sometimes steered to RF microneedling for pigment safety even when the scars themselves would suit CO2.

Absolute. Zero direct sun while you are healing, then rigorous protection for months. New skin over a treated scar has almost no defence against ultraviolet light, and exposure causes post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. A brown patch where a scar used to be is harder to correct than the scar was, and it can be permanent.

In practice that means staying indoors and away from windows early on, then broad-spectrum SPF 50 every day once we clear you to apply it, reapplied through the day, with a wide-brimmed hat. This holds on cloudy days and through winter. It also rules out beach holidays, ski trips and tanning for the period we specify, and because scar revision is a series, that period repeats with each session. If you have something booked, tell us at the consultation and we will schedule around it.

You risk a new scar on top of the one we are treating, and you risk infection. The crust is a temporary barrier over a wound that has not closed. Pulling it off early tears skin that is still knitting together, and picking is the single most common cause of a poor outcome from CO2 treatment. On a scar that is a particular waste, because the whole point of the session was to rebuild that tissue neatly.

It will itch, sometimes intensely, and it will look ready to come off before it is. Keep it greasy, since ointment reduces the itch, and let every piece fall away on its own. If the itching becomes unbearable, call us instead of touching it.

The real result arrives months after the peeling stops. Once the crusting comes away the skin looks pinker and smoother, and the scars often look shallower already, partly because of swelling that then settles. The lasting change comes as collagen rebuilds inside each column over three to six months, and it stacks session by session.

Judge each session at three to six months, not at two weeks, and judge the course at the end of it. We photograph every visit under the same light so you can compare against where you started, because the eye forgets what a scar used to look like once it has improved.

No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. People search for laser scar removal, and we understand why, but the honest word is revision. A scar is skin that has already healed once, in a disordered pattern, and no laser turns it back into skin that was never injured.

What CO2 does is remove and rebuild part of that tissue in each session, so the scar becomes shallower, softer at the edges and closer in texture and colour to the skin around it. Improved, not erased. The aim is the difference between a scar you think about and one you forget. Whether that trade is worth a week of recovery is your call, and we will give you an honest read on your odds at the consultation. If what you need is a scar gone entirely, we will tell you there that this treatment cannot promise it.

Not until the acne is quiet. Lasering over inflamed lesions raises the infection risk across an open surface, and the breakouts you have now are still making new scars behind the ones we would be treating.

The doctor will look at where your acne stands at the consultation. If it is still active she will want it under control first and will book the laser once your skin has been clear for a stretch. If you have recently finished isotretinoin, there is also a waiting period before any ablative laser, and she will tell you how long.

No. Raised, hypertrophic and keloid scars are a contraindication for CO2 here, and a history of keloids rules the treatment out even for a depressed scar elsewhere. The laser works by creating a controlled wound and relying on your skin to heal it neatly. Skin that has already responded to injury by overproducing scar tissue is the one kind of skin that cannot be trusted to do that, and the result can be a bigger, thicker scar than you started with.

The doctor can discuss what is appropriate for a raised scar at the consultation. CO2 scar revision is for depressed scars: acne pits, sunken surgical lines, and traumatic scars that sit below the surface.