Active Fx vs IPL photofacial

Hello, I hope that you can answer my question.
Some background info:
I am 38 years old and 2 days ago I had my 2nd round of IPL Photofacial . I want to reduce the size of my pores, reduce facial redness and improve my skin texture on my inner cheeks (it's coarse). My dermatologist said I have mild sun damage and that I should see improvement from 3 Photofacials. I also have mild acne and will have 3 silk peels right before the Photofacial each time. My aesthetician recomended that I use retinol regularly to help reduce the coarseness and pores on my face too.
I haven't seen improvement in my pores and skin texture yet and I have a few minor scabs on my face from the Photofacial and laser where the dr removed some broken capillaries 2 days ago. My face still looks a little red too. So to me, my skin looks even more rough right now!
I have 3 questions:
1) How effective is the Photofacial for reducing pore size and smoothing mild coarse skin?
2) What kind of results in general should I expect from 3 treatments?
3) And will the retinol help smooth coarse skin? How long does it take to see results with retinol?
I really want to repair the sun damage that I have and do my best to prevent any further damage in the future so I have been wearing a facial sunblock (Minus Sol 30+ SPF) for 3 years now and I recently started putting sunblock on my neck, chest, arms and hands.

One final question:

4) If I wear sunblock regularly now at age 38 and once or twice a year I get a followup Photofacial, will any of the damage I already caused come back or new damage still appear? I want to make sure that my skin doesn't get worse than it already is!

Thank you so much for your feedback.

hi,
photofacial works well to reduce brown pigment and redness.
that's it.
i do not think that photofacial will impact your pores or change the texture of your skin, even in 5 sessions.
changing the texture of your skin is very difficult. retin-a is an excellent idea - i think that an anti oxidant like prevage is also good.
the thing is that it will take a while.
i use active fx laser to shrink pores and refine skin instead of photofacial. it works well, but there is about a week of downtime after the procedure.
wearing sunblock regularly will help.