Chemical Face Peel

This treatment aims to smooth out your skin by chemically removing the outer skin layers and the fine wrinkles. A chemical peel will not tighten or plump out your skin, nor will it remove deep grooves or folds. It will not necessarily erase all the lines, although it should erase many and soften and flatten others.

The wrinkles removed by a peel usually don't come back, but new lines may gradually show up over many years. Some people seem to have a permanent result from the peel, with few new lines forming as long as ten or even twenty years afterwards. Your own results will depend on your skin, sun exposure (sun makes the skin line again) and whether or not you smoke. (Smoking contributes to loss of elasticity in the skin.)

A chemical peel can be done at any age, but people in their forties and fifties are likely to heal somewhat faster and to have less pain than people in their seventies. Some women form fine lines around the lips at an early age before other signs of aging in their face. For them a chemical peel around the mouth could be done in the thirties.

A chemical peel around the mouth can be combined with a facelift or other facial cosmetic surgery, but a full-face peel is usually done alone. There tends to be considerable swelling of the face and eyes. For this reason, the facelift would be done first and a full-face chemical peel about eight weeks later.

A chemical peel is often done on an outpatient basis in a doctor's office operating room or treatment room or in an outpatient surgery center. You are given sedation to make the burning from the chemical used in the peel tolerable. However, your skin is not injected with local anesthetic in most cases. The application of the chemical is done slowly to make it less uncomfortable for you. A full- face peel will take about an hour to apply. Smaller areas will take fifteen to thirty minutes.

The chemical peel solution is applied to your face with cotton swabs. It is swabbed down into each wrinkle and an inch or two below the jawline if the lower face is being peeled. After the treatment, you are taken to a recovery area where you are given lots of fluid either by mouth or by IV, and are encouraged not to talk. By the end of the day after a full-face peel, your eyes may be swollen shut.

Your peeled skin will ache, burn, or hurt for about two days. This is enough to require narcotic pain medication and sedation. You will be in bed or in a chair for those first two days, although you'll be able to walk around a bit. Around your mouth the peel will not only ache, but motion may irritate the peeled area, so you'll need to avoid talking and eating except for a small amount of liquid.

Your face swells dramatically after a full-face peel. Even with your skin healed at a week, you will look puffy. After you heal (about seven days) your peeled skin will be red. You should use no makeup on the peeled skin for two weeks after the peel. Your peeled skin will take at least six weeks to fade. It may be months before you can go without makeup in public.

You don't have to do anything for your wound for the first two days because the peeled area is covered with two layers of adhesive tape.

On day three, when the tape is removed, your surgeon will usually cover the peeled skin with a thymol iodide powder to dry the weeping areas and help fight infection. Your skin will be moist at first and then dries to a brown crust. On day four, you will be instructed to put a lubricating ointment on your skin to soften it. You can begin to gently soak your skin with plain water, and apply more ointment to crusted areas. You can't use soap for weeks. It will dry and irritate your peeled skin.

You must avoid suntanning and intentional sun exposure for the first three to six months after your chemical peel. Sunblocks are drying and irritating to most skins to some degree. You may not be able to use a sunblock for four to six weeks after the peel. After that you must remember to use a sunblock on the peeled skin whenever you are out in the sun. The peel permanently removes your normal tanning ability, which means you can very easily get severe sunburn. Also, you are almost certainly at a higher risk for developing sun-stimulated skin cancers, if you expose your peeled skin, without sunblock protection, to the sun. Avoid products containing alpha hydroxyacids until the skin returns to its normal condition.

Delay application of make-up for twenty-four hours on the peeled area. Avoid the use of abrasive or exfoliating sponges on the area.

Patients with a history of herpes simplex should be placed on the appropriate prophylactic antiviral medication. The peel procedure can induce an episode of herpes lesions in patients who have had them before.

You can go back to work about two weeks after your chemical peel. You could go back earlier, but your red and swollen skin will probably make this unacceptable for you. You will need to avoid all sports in the sun for the first six weeks after a chemical peel.

The pores of your skin are enlarged by the peel. The skin will burn easily in the sun and will always require sun protection.

The chemical peel is able to change the skin in a way in which no other procedure can. Therefore, it is extremely useful. However, it hurts, the recovery is tedious, and the redness in your skin may last for months. The peel can scar the skin. Chemical peel is not recommended for the skin on other parts of the body. The excellent blood flow and thinness of facial skin make it possible for the face to heal without scars after a peel. This is not true on the hands and arms, where the skin reacts to the peel by forming scars. These can be disfiguring and may require surgery to correct.

Before	After

Copyright © 1998 - 2008 All rights reserved.
This web site designed & maintained by The Dogwood Mall