A brief explanation of why I am reposting this
I decided to delete my original post and publish it again with exactly the same content, but without the photograph, following the advice of my German lawyer.
Let me explain why.
In the original post, I included a photograph showing the condition of my skin after the laser treatment. Since I wanted to protect my identity, I used AI to cover parts of my face. I did not ask AI to alter my skin condition, change the pigmentation, or make the results of the treatment look worse. My intention was simply to hide my identity.
Unfortunately, I am not particularly skilled with computers or photo-editing software. I don't even have a proper photo-editing program on my computer, so using AI seemed like the easiest way to anonymize the photograph.
Some users noticed that AI had been used on the image and pointed this out in the comments.
After discussing this with my German lawyer, she advised me to remove the photograph for the time being. Her concern was that the clinic might try to use the fact that AI had been involved in processing the photograph to question its authenticity and potentially use that argument against me in the ongoing legal dispute.
I do not want to give the clinic any opportunity to undermine my case over something as simple as anonymizing a photograph.
Since I also couldn't figure out how to remove just the photograph from the original Reddit post, I decided to delete the entire post and publish it again without the image.
I will try to find a conventional photo-editing program that allows me to cover my face without using AI. However, as I mentioned, I am not particularly technically skilled, so I will have to see how that goes.
I also want to make something absolutely clear:
I stand by every single word I wrote in both Part 1 and Part 2 of my story. Everything I have described is based on my own personal experiences. I am fully prepared to repeat and defend these statements in court or anywhere else if necessary. Im fed up with clinic and dr and how they ruined my life.
As for the text itself, English is not my native language. I dictate my experiences in my own language and use AI to polish and translate them into English. I then review the translation to make sure it accurately reflects what I said.
The experiences, opinions, and statements are entirely my own. AI is simply a tool that makes translation easier and faster.
Nothing about my story has changed. I am reposting exactly the same account, simply without the photograph, as a precaution on the advice of my lawyer.
My experience with treatment at Hautteam Bochum, specifically treatment performed by Dr. Klaus Hoffmann using the Lumenis UltraPulse CO₂ laser, was extremely negative. I underwent the treatment in November 2023, and the result is an aesthetic catastrophe.
Before the treatment, I
attended two consultations during which the doctor explained to me that the
UltraPulse CO₂ laser was the best fractional laser in the world. He compared it
to a racing car versus an ordinary car, or a Ferrari versus a normal car.
He claimed that the results were incomparable to those of other lasers and that
he was a top specialist with many years of experience. This was also supposed
to justify the high price of the treatment.
I paid €2,400 for the
procedure and approximately another €100 for various ointments and medications.
Dr. Hoffmann explained to
me that a professional procedure performed by a top specialist simply costs
money, and that it is always cheaper than having to correct mistakes made
during an unprofessional procedure.
Well, in my opinion, my
face now looks as though I had undergone an unprofessional procedure at a
beauty salon for a few euros. And trying to repair what happened is costing me
a great deal of additional money, time, and emotional energy. If it can even be
repaired at all.
What the Doctor Told Me Before the
Treatment
During both
consultations, I explicitly asked about possible permanent consequences.
Specifically, I asked about permanent loss of subcutaneous fat, the development
of so-called "orange peel skin," and permanent loss of pigmentation.
Dr. Klaus Hoffmann
clearly told me that such complications were not possible with his treatment
because he never treated too deeply or too aggressively. He claimed that these
problems only occurred with excessively aggressive treatment, which he did not
perform.
He also explained that he
only treated the epidermis, not the dermis, and that pigmentation loss was
therefore not a risk.
I then asked whether it
would be possible to treat only my acne scars. After all, that was the reason I
was undergoing the procedure. I was not interested in facial rejuvenation, only
in improving my scars.
He replied that this
would technically be possible, but it would create so-called demarcation zones.
This meant that the treated areas of the face would look different from the
untreated areas. He explained that this was an undesirable aesthetic effect
that we wanted to avoid.
For that reason, he
recommended treating the entire face, a so-called "full-face"
treatment, which, according to his explanation, would prevent such differences
from occurring.
And this is precisely the
most absurd part of the entire situation. The doctor himself warned me about
the risk of demarcation zones, convinced me that treating the entire face would
prevent them, and the result of his procedure was exactly the demarcation zones
he had warned me about.
The Treatment in November 2023
I arrived at Hautteam
Bochum in the morning. First, they performed a so-called FaceScan, during which
my face was scanned and photographed from different angles.
I was then supposed to
undergo the laser treatment itself at approximately 9:00 a.m.
However, I was informed
that the doctor was running behind schedule and that I should return in the
afternoon. I no longer remember the exact time, but I believe it was around
3:00 p.m.
At the time, this did not
particularly surprise me. Dr. Hoffmann was late for practically every
consultation, and paradoxically, I regarded this as a sign that he was a very
busy and sought-after specialist.
Today, I see it
completely differently.
When I entered the laser
treatment room, I was given pain-relieving injections and connected to devices
monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure.
Dr. Hoffmann was once
again not present.
A young female doctor
informed me that she would begin the treatment without him. She was even
setting up the laser herself.
I do not know whether she
set it up correctly. In my opinion, the settings of such a powerful device
should have been handled by the doctor I had specifically come to see and whose
expertise I had paid a considerable amount of money for.
I refused to let her
perform the treatment and insisted on Dr. Hoffmann being present.
After approximately
fifteen minutes, he finally arrived, visibly out of breath, apparently because
he was once again running behind schedule.
In my opinion, the
treatment itself was then performed very quickly. Everything gave me the
impression that there was constant rushing.
Rush, rush, rush.
After the procedure, they
applied cream and a mask to my face.
The following day, I
attended a follow-up appointment. They removed the mask, treated my face, and
told me that everything looked excellent.
The First Signs of a Problem
After seven days, I
returned for another follow-up appointment.
Even then, I noticed that
certain parts of my face looked as though they had not been treated at all.
These were mainly the
lateral areas of my forehead, particularly the corners of my forehead, and the
areas along my jawline, where there was a clearly visible sharp boundary between
treated and untreated skin.
I explicitly pointed this
out to Dr. Hoffmann.
I asked him whether it
would be a problem that some parts of my face had apparently been left
untreated, especially since he himself had explained before the procedure how
undesirable demarcation zones were.
He assured me that there
would be no problem, that everything looked fine, and that I had nothing to
worry about.
However, approximately
three to four months later, when the redness of my skin began to fade, the
actual result became apparent.
Very pronounced and
visible demarcation lines remained on my face between the treated and untreated
areas of skin.
Exactly what the doctor
himself had warned me about before the procedure.
In addition, white
hypopigmented areas appeared on my forehead, meaning areas where pigmentation
had been lost.
A prominent white line
developed along the contour of my jawline, and it is still visible today.
As a result, I now have
not only differences between treated and untreated areas of my face, but also
pigmentation disorders that I did not have before the procedure.
I was completely shocked.
I had gone there to
improve my acne scars, and instead I ended up with additional aesthetic
problems that, in my opinion, are considerably worse than the original scars.
Attempts to Correct the Problem at
Hautteam Bochum
I returned to Hautteam
Bochum to address the situation.
At first, I was seen by a
young female doctor who practically downplayed the problem. Without conducting
a more thorough examination, she simply told me that such things could happen.
Dr. Hoffmann then arrived
and acknowledged that there was a problem.
He suggested trying to
treat the previously untreated areas of my face using a Pico laser and various
creams.
I underwent these
treatments twice.
Even at that time, I told
him that, in my layman's opinion, such an approach could not resolve the
fundamental difference between skin treated with a powerful fractional CO₂
laser and skin that had not been treated with that laser.
I believed that the same
UltraPulse CO₂ laser should be used to complete the originally untreated areas
in order to even out the differences.
Only after that should we
address what could be done about the hypopigmented areas.
However, Dr. Hoffmann
claimed that the corners of the forehead could not be treated with this laser
and that the neck healed very poorly.
To me, these explanations
sounded like excuses.
Nevertheless, I respected
his professional opinion and underwent the proposed treatments.
In my assessment, the
result was zero.
The demarcation zones
remained.
Another Procedure in 2025
At the beginning of 2025,
I contacted Dr. Hoffmann again.
I explained to him that I
could not simply remain like this and that the result of the procedure was having
a major impact on my appearance and psychological well-being.
This time, he told me
that he would use the UltraPulse CO₂ laser and attempt to complete the
untreated areas of my face.
Finally, I felt that the
problem was actually going to be addressed.
I also asked him again
about the loss of pigmentation. He assured me that the pigment would return and
that, in his opinion, permanent pigmentation loss was not a risk.
Therefore, in June 2025,
I underwent another treatment.
I assumed that it would
be a procedure similar to the original treatment in November 2023.
However, after the
procedure, I learned that the ActiveFX mode with mild settings had been used,
rather than the treatment I had expected.
I was disappointed and
felt that I had been misled as a patient.
This treatment also
failed to produce any of the desired results.
After several more
months, it became clear that the demarcation zones had remained practically
unchanged.
I had therefore lost
almost two years of my life through repeated visits, consultations, and
attempts at correction that led nowhere.
And above all, I had lost
my trust in Dr. Hoffmann.
Consultations with Other Specialists
I therefore decided to
seek opinions from other doctors.
I also consulted an
experienced specialist in Italy who works with the Lumenis UltraPulse CO₂ laser.
After examining me, he
explained that, in his opinion, the areas that had been left untreated during
the original procedure, particularly the corners of my forehead, should also
have been treated.
He disagreed with the
claim that these areas could not be treated with a CO₂ laser.
He also explained that a
fractional CO₂ laser does not act only on the epidermis but, depending on its
settings, also penetrates into the dermis. The effect on the deeper layers of
the skin is an essential part of how this type of laser works.
He also explained that
melanocytes, the cells responsible for producing pigment, are primarily located
in the basal layer of the epidermis.
I was therefore very
surprised by the explanations I had previously received from Dr. Hoffmann.
The Italian doctor
recommended first addressing the differences between the treated and untreated
areas of skin and only afterward looking for possible solutions to the
hypopigmentation.
He also warned me that corrective
procedures carry their own risks and that correcting an unevenly performed
laser treatment can be much more complicated than performing the original
procedure correctly.
Other doctors with whom I
discussed my condition expressed similar opinions.
In their view, creams or
Pico laser treatments alone may not be capable of eliminating the differences
between skin treated with a fractional CO₂ laser and untreated areas.
Dr in Italy also told me
that what he thinks went wron in first place was the dr. Hoffman used very high
density of laser, which resulted in almost Full ablation and thats the problem,
he didnt leave some untreated areas like fractional is supposed to do but full
ablation. If i knew this i d never went for that treatment in Germany,
i thought that would be fractional not very aggresive treatment.
The Consequences I Am Living With
Two years after the
original procedure, I therefore decided to continue trying to correct the
damage with another doctor.
For me, this means
additional expenses, further treatments, more recovery periods, and continued
uncertainty.
And the worst part is that
I still do not know whether everything can ever be repaired.
Some doctors have warned
me that pigmentation loss can, in certain cases, be permanent.
The thought that visible
white areas and demarcation lines might remain on my face permanently is extremely
difficult for me.
What troubles me most,
however, is that I raised concerns about possible permanent consequences before
the procedure.
I explicitly asked about
them.
And I was repeatedly
assured that I did not need to worry.
I went to a reputable
medical facility to see a doctor who presented his experience, expertise, and
state-of-the-art technology.
I paid a high price for
the procedure precisely because I wanted to minimize the risk of complications.
Yet the result is a
condition that I consider considerably worse than the original problem.
The acne scars for which
I underwent the treatment have, in my assessment, improved only minimally or
not at all.
Instead, I now have new
aesthetic problems on my face that I did not have before the procedure.
Of course, I understand
that every medical procedure carries risks and that even the best doctor cannot
guarantee a perfect result.
But in my opinion, there
is a fundamental difference between an unpredictable complication and a
situation in which parts of the skin are left untreated during a full-face
procedure, resulting in exactly the visible boundaries that the doctor himself
had warned the patient about.
That is precisely why I
consider the entire course of my treatment to have been extremely unsatisfactory.
Why I Am Publishing This Review
Finally, I want to say
that this is exactly why I consider reviews like this and the publication of
patients' personal experiences to be extremely important.
People considering a
similar procedure should be aware not only of the potential positive results,
but also of what can happen when a procedure does not turn out as they were
promised.
They should know that
neither a high price, a reputable clinic, an expensive device, nor a doctor
with many years of experience automatically guarantees a good result.
And above all, they
should know that the consequences may involve not only an aesthetic problem,
but also years of further treatments, significant financial expenses,
psychological distress, and uncertainty about whether the damage can ever be
repaired.
I am not publishing this
experience to discourage people from undergoing laser treatments in general,
but rather so that others can make their decisions based on as much information
as possible.
If I had known about a
similar experience from another patient before my own procedure, perhaps I
would have made a completely different decision.
And if my review helps
even one person avoid going through what I have had to endure, and am still
enduring, then writing it was worthwhile.
At the same time, I must
say that after my treatment, I began paying much closer attention to reviews of
Hautteam Bochum.
From time to time, a
negative review appears, but it is immediately challenged very aggressively by
the clinic. Over the almost three years that I have been following these
reviews, quite a number of negative reviews have been deleted.
There was even a woman
who wrote that the clinic's lawyers had threatened her with a lawsuit in a
letter.
This is how a high rating
is maintained.
Unfortunately, I was
taken in by the high rating.
