Treatments That Reduce Sun Damage

Answered by: Renee Stroffe PA-C

Each individual treatment can be helpful on its own, but the true benefits come from combining the treatments as well as repetition. It is important to keep the benefits you achieve with maintenance treatments.

Intense Pulse Light Laser (IPL): Photoderm technology is a procedure that targets brown and red pigmentation and helps it fade away. IPL accomplishes this by delivering pulses of light. Irregularities such as brown and red spots or clusters of veins can be treated. IPL can also stimulate collagen to create firmer complexions, even out skin tone and texture, and reduce pore sizes. Multiple treatments may be needed.

Pico Laser: Pico laser 670 wavelength and 532 wavelength is a great solution for brown patches and spots with little or no downtime. As we age, sun-induce lentigos or brown spots start to appear on our face and body. The Pico laser is the best treatment for low contrast, light brown spots that devices like IPLs cannot improve. It can treat hard-to-resolve brown spots because of its selectivity for brown pigment. We can combine Pico technology with our other lasers to customize your treatment. Multiple treatments may be needed.

Thulium/Fraxel Laser: A “fractional” treatment that produces thousands of deep, tiny columns in your skin called microscopic treatment zones (MTZ).  “Fractional” means that only a percentage of the skin surface is affected with each pass, reducing the healing time and promoting the skin’s natural process for creating new, healthier tissue to replace the damaged cells.  The Thulium and Fraxel lasers can be performed on damaged skin on both the face and body. This treatment helps to reduce skin cancer risk by 50% as it treats actinic damage and helps to create a glow to the skin.

VBeam: As we age, sun damage can create broken capillaries and diffuse red sun damage to exposed skin. VBeam causes the blood within the vein to coagulate, eventually destroying the vessels to be later reabsorbed by your body. Blood flow is then redirected to veins deeper below your skin’s surface, where they are not visible or not as visible. Multiple treatments may be needed.

IPL-Thulium: A great combination to treat rough, speckled, and sun-weathered skin. IPL helps to even the overall redness and uneven pigmentation. Thulium helps rejuvenate the skin, leaving it smooth, buttery, and more even-toned. Studies have shown that combining these treatments reduces the number of skin cancers in patients, so it is also a proactive skin cancer prevention intervention.

Pico-Thulium: The perfect pair of lasers to treat low-contrast brown spots while addressing actinic damage. Pico is the gold standard for treating pigmented spots on the skin. Research has shown that Thulium can decrease the risk of non-melanoma skin cancers. Combined, these lasers stimulate collagen production and give the skin a radiant glow. This treatment combination requires minimal downtime and can yield great results on the face, neck, chest, arms, and legs.