No Longer Just for Acne: IPL and How It Helps Those With Rosacea

Any­one who has ever been diag­nosed with Rosacea can tell you that it’s not only a huge incon­ve­nience, but it can also be a source of great dis­may. Of course there are things that can be done to man­age it, but it is essen­tially with­out a cure. Peo­ple with Rosacea have had to spend their lives man­ag­ing this con­di­tion through diet, stress con­trol and med­ica­tions lest they expe­ri­ence an episode. These ‘episodes’ leave many suf­fer­ers with severe flush­ing, skin lesions, and in advanced cases, over­growth of skin. Years have passed with lit­tle advance­ment in Rosacea treat­ment, until now. More and more, der­ma­tol­o­gists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are rec­om­mend­ing the use of Intense Pulsed Light ther­apy (IPL) in order to not only con­trol Rosacea, but to ren­der it asymptomatic.

Rosacea: Just the Basics

Rosacea has no known cause, but plenty of known trig­gers. Believed to be inher­ited and more preva­lent in fair skinned peo­ple, flare-ups can occur due to many exter­nal and inter­nal fac­tors. Spicy food, alco­hol, cof­fee, stress and strong emo­tions can all trig­ger an episode, leav­ing the suf­fer­ers with heav­ily flushed faces and even painful acne-like bumps that don’t respond to treat­ment. Incur­able, incon­ve­nient, and uncom­fort­able, suf­fers have believed for cen­turies that noth­ing can be done.

How a Cou­ple of Rays of Light Can Help

Orig­i­nally cre­ated for hair removal, IPL ther­apy has been approved by the FDA since 1995 but is only recently gain­ing momen­tum as a Rosacea treat­ment. In fact, mod­ern der­ma­tol­o­gists are begin­ning to con­sider it the treat­ment of choice, beat­ing out the creams and lotions that have been tra­di­tion­ally pre­scribed by med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Dur­ing the treat­ment ses­sion, the doc­tor admin­is­ters pulses of light specif­i­cally tar­geted at the cor­rect fre­quency to lit­er­ally dis­man­tle the rup­tured hemo­glo­bin cells in the dermis.
These cells absorb the light, which has trans­formed to heat, effec­tively destroy­ing the cell and allow­ing the body to reab­sorb the waste. The unaf­fected skin remains undam­aged, but the affected por­tions are rad­i­cally trans­formed in as lit­tle as three sessions.

Does IPL Really Work?

Cur­rently, der­ma­tol­o­gists are rec­om­mend­ing three to five ses­sions of IPL, depend­ing on the sever­ity of the individual’s con­di­tion. There are some who may be skep­ti­cal about com­mit­ting to the time and cost that the course of treat­ment neces­si­tates; how­ever when the hard data is exam­ined, the ben­e­fits far out­weigh the cost. Recently, a group of Rosacea suf­fer­ers under­went five IPL help­ing sci­en­tists to col­lect data in order to bet­ter under­stand the effec­tive­ness of the process. The results were stag­ger­ing. The sub­jects enjoyed an 83 per­cent decrease in red­ness, a 75 per­cent decrease in the amount of flush­ing and 64 per­cent expe­ri­enced fewer break­outs. With those kinds of results, there is no won­der why so many doc­tors are rec­om­mend­ing IPL to their patients.
Imag­ine a life where your con­fi­dence isn’t related to the con­di­tion of your skin. Imag­ine a life where a slight blush on your cheek is just that. If you have been endur­ing Rosacea, IPL is an amaz­ing oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence some­thing that actu­ally brings relief. With lit­tle down time and no lin­ger­ing side effects besides a bit of swelling, there is no rea­son not to con­sider this rev­o­lu­tion­ary treatment.