Pigmented Lesions Need to Feel Some Laser Energy
- Posted on: Jan 15 2020
If you have any degree of fair skin, it’s likely you have lots of spots wherever the sun has hit your skin. When you were younger you probably even courted the sun. After all, human skin darkens/tans as a protection mechanism against bombardment from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. And we all wanted to be tan.
While the Coppertone Girl is no longer an advertising icon, she surely was just a few decades ago.
And now your skin shows it with age spots, sun spots, café-au-lait spots, and other pigmented lesions. But if you come see us at Skin & Cosmetic Solutions, we can put our VersaPulse® laser to work getting rid of all of those pesky pigmented lesions.
Why do I have brown spots?
Brown spots are caused by excess melanin in the skin. Excess exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet radiation causes a local proliferation of melanocytes and the accumulation of melanin within the skin cells. While sun exposure is the most common cause of brown spots, they can also be a result of simple aging of the skin. Human skin tans basically as a defense mechanism against the sun, stimulating the melanocyte cells to produce more melanin and darken the skin. Age/sun/brown spots are a microcosm of this process. They are simply deeper in the skin, so they don’t peel off in the way tanned skin eventually does.
Brown spots usually form on areas of the skin that receive the most sun: the face, neck, décolletage, back, shoulders, arms, legs, and feet.
How do lasers remove brown spots?
To remove the brown spot, the excess melanin that is giving the spot its color needs to be broken up. The most effective way to do this is through the use of laser energy. Our VersaPulse® laser produces short pulses of a wide spectrum of laser wavelengths. This allows us to treat a full range of pigmented lesions. We match the laser wavelength to match the melanin in your spots. When the laser energy is directed onto the surface of the skin with the pigmented lesions, the energy is absorbed by the melanin in those spots. The energy converts to heat at the site of the spots, causing the melanin to break apart. The body then removes the melanin and the spot disappears or dramatically lessens in appearance.
How many treatments are needed to remove the spots?
Depending on the individual, laser brown spot removal can be very effective with from one to four sessions. Many of the spots will be removed in just one treatment. If you need additional treatment to get a stubborn spot to fully break up and go away, we usually want you to wait 6-8 weeks between sessions.
January and February are great months to have us put our VersaPulse® laser to work on your pigmented lesions. Call us at Skin & Cosmetic Solutions, (919) 876-9576 to schedule a consultation.
Posted in: Laser Procedures