PicoSure FAQ’s

Your skin will be smoother visually and to touch, less wrinkled and have more even color. You will probably look 7-10 years younger. There is essentially no down time.

It is outstanding at wrinkles; a typical treatment will take 1.5-2 years off your appearance. Many people look 10 years younger after 4-5 treatments. Melasma is tough to treat and there is no cure. The PicoSure Focus treatments are great at reducing melasma and after 1-3 treatments it would be typical to reduce melasma by 60-90%. However, melasma will slowly return if no maintenance laser or bleaching treatments are done. It works best when combined with creams such as hydroquinone and tretinoin.

Absolutely. It is great for scar, great for the brown pigmentation in your scar and safe for your skin type. It will also reduce wrinkles.

Absolutely. You’ll get better results that way.

For most types of treatment, like skin rejuvenation, the answer is no. However, for difficult pigment problems including melasma results are better if you pretreat for a few weeks or more with lightening creams, like hydroquinone. You should not have a recent tan or sunburn in the area to be treated with the PicoSure or any other laser. Recent sun exposure plus a laser treatment can cause burns. Some facial treatments may be followed by antiviral pills, such as acyclovir or valacyclovir. This reduces the chances of fever blisters or shingles. Be sure to tells us if you have a history of prior fever blisters or shingles.

Yes. Be sure to tell us prior to treatment and we’ll do two things: first, any prior shingles or fever blisters should be healed; second, you should be placed on antiviral medicine to prevent the recurrence of shingles or fever blisters. This can be started about the time you begin your laser treatment or just before. Mechanical skin trauma, surgery or laser therapy over an area of prior shingles or prior herpes simplex infection (fever blisters) can reactivate this type of viral infection.

If we avoid the skin cancer surgery area you can be treated now, but for treatment over a surgical area we usually wait 6 months.

You may see a 7-14% improvement in scar with each treatment. You will likely notice decreased scar within a month or so after your second treatment and with 3-5 treatments the scar reduction is often dramatic. The brown areas will often lighten up as well.

Every 2-4 weeks. We usually wait 4 weeks after the first treatment and then 2 weeks after the second treatment. For darker skin we may wait a bit longer in between treatments.

I had some done with our machine on my back and the pain was about a 1 out of 10.

It hurts more than minor spot treatments. In a study of 60 patients with very dark skin in New York about 40% of them wanted some anesthetic cream prior to treatment, but none stopped the procedure due to pain. Some areas, like the upper lip, are more sensitive.

The biggest risk is hypopigmentation, or lightening of the skin, in the treated area. This usually resolves in 1-12 months if you get it. Blisters occurring after treatment are rare with facial rejuvenation treatments, but are common after tattoo treatments.

Extremely effective, much more so than Q switched lasers like our Medlite C6. Picosecond technology lasers like the PicoSure are the treatments of choice for this as they are both effective and safe! However, 4-6 treatments may be required for really outstanding results.

Yes, and this is the standard of the care in the laser treatment and cosmetic industry. We do the same prior to Botox, Fillers, varicose vein treatments, mole removal and other laser treatments.

A very intelligent question! I’d like to look at your spots and décolleté first. However, many dark spots lighten up significantly with generalized skin rejuvenation. In most cases, you can do this first. If some areas are still pretty dark you can spot treat these areas cheaply afterwards.

Most of the time it will be one of our experienced laser techs. However, all office members and the doctor are trained and certified to use the PicoSure. Feel free to request a particular tech you’ve had good results with.

We have a trained group of longstanding employees who are friendly, bilingual and knowledgeable. 4 of them have been with us for over 5 years and do general medical work as well as laser and cosmetic work. Our 2 aestheticians are bilingual and are also laser trained. Regular laser training and/or discussion of medical, cosmetic and laser cases occurs weekly in our office. Calvin H. Van Reken, M.D. is a dedicated laser expert who also speaks Spanish. Because we are a bilingual office we have extensive experience both in Caucasian skin (easy to treat) and skin of color (harder to treat). Our office has used a variety of medical lasers since about 2009. We currently have about 10 lasers that do skin tightening, wrinkle reduction, scar resurfacing, laser hair removal, photodynamic therapy, sun damage removal, acne reduction, vaginal revitalization, incontinence treatment, rosacea treatments, mole removal, varicose vein destruction, stretch mark reduction, tattoo removal, melasma reduction and other things. We also have a blue light, a red light, a radiofrequency skin shaping tool, a radiofrequency Ematrix skin tightening machine, a CosmoPen microneedling system and an IPL (intense pulsed light) and other lasers. The team is medically trained and physician supervised. There are free consultations and price quotes with Calvin H. Van Reken, M.D. prior to treatment. Any tech that treats you at Reno Sparks Medspa will be manufacturer certified on any laser or other device you are treated with. The PicoSure is the most effective skin rejuvenation in the world for darker skin and has little or no down time. The medical supervision re our laser services is the most comprehensive in Northern Nevada with Calvin H. Van Reken, M.D. on site for questions and treatment settings 95% of the time when services are performed. Many area clinics have minimal physician supervision. Calvin H. Van Reken, M.D. has been treating skin for over 30 years and also has experience in detecting and treating other skin diseases, such as skin cancer, warts and eczema. Calvin H. Van Reken, M.D. has at times been a laser trainer for other medical professionals. Our prices are reasonable. Discounted services are often available for those who are willing to allow us to use their before and after pics or videos for informational and/or advertising purposes.

None, the marketing team at Cynosure is renaming the PicoSure and the PicoSkin will soon be the new name. Anything true about the PicoSure will still be true after the name change, the rumor is the new name will be used publically some time in 2017. Whatever you name it, this laser if a game changer—fast, safe, no down time, effective and suitable for any skin type. It works for pigment, wrinkles, scar & tattoo. When I first saw the before and after pictures of what this laser can do my jaw dropped! Since we bought the machine our team is getting in line for their own treatments!