There is a broad spectrum of therapies available for treating age and sun damaged skin as well as treating unwanted natural skin changes. This ranges at one extreme from a surgical facelift and deep laser or chemical peels involving a number of days spent at home recuperating. These procedures have considerable expense and occasional significant side effects but can reduce many wrinkles.

Milder, much less costly treatments include “nonablative” laser and intense pulsed light treatments. Here there typically isn’t downtime involved and patients usually go back to work and social activities immediately afterward. Of course the tradeoff is that these treatments don’t reduce most wrinkles. (I have gone to many conferences where manufacturers tout their devices’ effect on removing wrinkles and yet even their own before and after photos often show barely any benefit). One must be skeptical when hearing about new, nonsurgical or nonablative wrinkle removal techniques!

The device we believe is most effective for no downtime skin rejuvenation and red and pigmented lesion removal is the Diolite laser made by Iridex. This has a selection of various, fine narrow beam sizes that focus the light beam a few times bigger than the period at the end of this sentence like a, well, laser onto specific unwanted skin changes to reduce or eliminate them. We also have a scanner attachment that is used for larger areas such as the widespread redness of rosacea or scattered age spots across the face, hands or chest.

This device is excellent for small spider veins and red spots, brown skin changes like age or sunspots and small moles on the face, hands and chest. It also works well for the problem of diffuse, red facial skin discoloration seen in rosacea. A recent study even showed it to be effective for reducing the unsightly red or brown skin discoloration often associated with scars.

The actual treatment may often be done at the time of the consult and the whole visit may take just 15 minutes. In other cases we’ll do a test area at the time of the consult to see just what effect the settings have on your skin. Often one treatment is enough, though sometimes 2 or 3 treatments are needed to achieve a satisfactory result. Most people don’t use anything for pain, as the treatment is not that uncomfortable. We do offer a topical anesthetic gel if desired. Usually patients simply return to work or their normal activities right after the procedure. Of course at the time of your consult we can decide which treatment is best for you and what you can expect. If you have a condition that is better treated with some other method we can discuss a referral to an expert in that field if you wish.

The Iridex company has more specific information and photos on their website at www.iridex.com/aesthetics and click on the “Clinical Applications” tab.