Fraxel treatment is a revolutionary laser treatment that helps remove years of aging and restores the appearance of a more youthful look. Fraxel treatment delivers remarkable results with fast recovery and treats sun damage, wrinkles or other signs of aging. Fraxel treatments vary in aggressiveness, downtime and number of procedures needed. The most aggressive treatment yields dramatic improvement for patients with severely damaged skin. This is a single treatment procedure, but requires more downtime and after-treatment wound care. Less aggressive treatments can produce significant improvement in mild to moderately damaged skin over the course of three to six treatments. When considering treatment options, patients and the physicians should discuss the trade-off between downtime and results in order to determine the best option for the skin condition and the lifestyle of the patient.

Self Help

Self help groups can complement and extend the effects of professional treatment. The most prominent self help groups are Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous. These help groups operate on the 12-step model. Most drug addiction treatment programs encourage patients to participate in self help group therapy during and after formal treatment. These groups can be particularly helpful during recovery, offering an added layer of community and social support to help people achieve and maintain abstinence and other healthy lifestyle behaviors over the course of a lifetime.

Topical Bactericidals

Widely available over-the-counter (OTC) bactericidal products containing benzoyl peroxide treat mild to moderate acne. Other anti-bacterials are triclosan, or chlorhexidine gluconate, but these are often less effective despite having fewer side effects.

Retainer Medicine

Retainer medicine is practiced by physicians who have decided to drop out of all third party payer programs. These practitioners have offered a limited number of patients the opportunity to pay a fixed annual fee in exchange for premium services and amenities. Retainers doctors generally limit, by a drastic amount, the number of patients, which they will service. This makes the most sense for primary care physicians and those specialists who have ongoing and regular relationships with their patients. Many retainer practices also provide amenities which patients often do not get when Medicare or an insurer pays the doctor, including access to the physician’s cell phone, e-mail correspondence, same-day appointments, and plenty of face time during appointments. However, whatever the specifics of a particular practice may be, the key that defines “retainer medicine” is that the doctor works for the patient. It has become impossible in practical terms and in ethical terms for traditional primary care physicians to fight the pervasive pressures upon them to ration healthcare at the bedside. To escape this fate, they must become either specialists or a retainer practitioner. That is, primary care physicians must choose between remaining in a system that ruthlessly pushes them toward a practice of bedside rationing or, one way or another, getting out of traditional primary care medicine altogether. Retainer medicine restores the professional integrity of medical practice, and re-establishes a doctor-patient relationship in which the physician can again assume the duty of a true advocate. It is perhaps the only remaining means to restore the foundational medical ethic of always placing the patient first. Retainer fees let one practice handle more patients by phone or email.