Today I went in for my consultation, and what turned into my first PDL treatment. First of all I was really surprised by how short it was. From the time I laid in the chair til I got up was maybe 10 minutes. I asked for some specs on what he did to inform everyone here and he told me he zapped me a total of 247 times, at 10mm, 7 joules and for 6ms. Immediately after the treatment my face was bright red, even more red than serious flushes but I expected that to happen so no worries. I used an icepack on each side of my face and within an hour the redness subsided substantially. Its been about 10 hours since the treatment and I see improvements already. My face has been very calm these past few hours, but there is one thing I noticed that is concerning me a little bit. It seems as if there are almost vertical waves in my face because the doctor went up in lines with the shots and it is slightly visible. It doesn't look bad or anything and I'm not really worried, just thought I'd throw it out there. Saying how much redness subsided from my normal resting state after only one treatment is nigh impossible but I can tell a difference. On the whole, my face is less red already. I plan on getting another treatment in a month or so and hopefully 2-3 after that to wrap things up. This has been the only thing to work thus far, and for all of you out there who were fighting an uphill battle like I myself was, I strongly recommend PDL. Oh and I didn't mention, I had PDL with the Candela V-beam. To Jason, I think you were the one who said you had great success with Paxil, I followed in your footsteps and asked my derm about that but he said he'd never heard of such a thing but wouldn't be surprised that it works. However he does not give perscriptions for those trpes of meds so I didn't push the subject, I will pursue that topic elsewhere and with a different doctor. For all those out there who have been posting and have helped me find my way to finally getting PDL I can't thank you enough. This is why I'm posting here, to give back. Anyone feel free to ask me and questions or express concerns or whatever else. I'll respond as quickly as I can, thanks alot.

Thanks for posting your results and putting in details of the joules used. Your result sounds really encouraging.

Don't worry about the lines - they will fade. Am I right when I say you had no real pupura (purple bruising) - only faint red marks from where the laser hit?

Did the V-beam model use have the cooling spray prior to each zap? Did your face swell at all?

Thanks for all your info.

no brusing at all, when i brought up the topic of pupura and told him everyone on here says that its a sign of pdl working he told me he can bruise me really easy, but a good derm can get the job done w/out bruising the face. The lines and swelling is pretty much all gone, and all seems well. There was a spray mist w/ each zap.

thanks for that. I often wonder about the whole brusing thing. For me the brusing was really bad but the results were good however this was to treat UO and KPAF which may be why.

I have seen a few post on the forum, that PDL made no difference and I often wonder if the setting were'nt high enough.

You are probably right when you say a lot of it relys on the skill of the derm. It appears you can receive good results with miminal bruising.

Did your derm say how many more treatments you would need?

he just said that multiple treatments would be needed to achieve the desirable results

I have similar settings 7.5 joules, 10mm, and uses the stacking method (2 zaps ) instead of the oridinary 1 zap. my 6th treatment so far!

what results have you seen thus far

its extremely lighter

not to be nosy, but how much did it cost for your pdl treatment? im trying to get an idea of how much it might cost if i decide to do the same thing. thanks

anybody have an idea??

$300 per treatment

wow thats not bad at all... i heard it was up to $1000 per treatment. so whats the update have you gotten any more treatments?

I want to badly but I am working and cannot take off, so the first possible appointment I could get was for around August 20th, but I'll let you all know how that go when the time comes.

Heeey Freshone,

How did it go?? seen more improvements..?

it went well. there is definitely more reduction in redness when i'm at a calm state, but i still flush. next time i'm going to ask the derm to juice it up a bit more and either try the stacking method or a higher setting. i have another appt on the 26th of september i believe.