“We’re talking today about IPL with a series of patients, and one of the questions that came up was the treatment using IPL photo rejuvenation or intense pulsed light (what IPL stands for), and the treatment of certain inflammatory skin disorders like acne or rosacea and whether they’re effective or contraindicated?
In summary, many of these inflammatory conditions can be effectively treated with IPL. In fact, rosacea has an excellent indication for the use of IPL. Rosacea, where you have small red bumps and capillaries and vessels particularly around the nose, in the middle of the face, over the cheeks. IPL can really be a very effective strategy for removing a lot of that redness, in combination with medical therapy.
IPL by itself and inflammatory conditions like acne wouldn’t be an isolated super procedure, there are some better some treatments. For example, photo-dynamic therapy, which is a treatment using an intense pulsed light machine or a blue light and pre-treating with a photo sensitizing agent known as levulan is a good way of reducing both the redness and inflammation associated with acne, as well as shrinking the glands where the acne bacteria lives, and killing the bacteria itself.
So there are a lot of conditions that are inflammatory in nature that causes pigmentary changes in the skin that IPL are very effective in treating and its really up to you and your doctor to decide whether intense pulsed light IPL (often known as photo facial) are the right conditions, and whether they offer a chance for improvement in those changes that we see that are the physical changes associated within inflammatory skin disorders.
If you have any other questions about IPL, please don’t hesitate to visit our video blog at DrMaas.com or call us with questions, I’m happy to answer all those. This is Corey S. Maas MDTM on Looking Your Best”
