Learning About Professional Skin Care

Posted on: 13 June 2017

Rosacea can be frustrating because the symptoms can come and go for years. Just when you think the redness is finally gone, it comes back worse than ever. In addition to skin redness that you may find embarrassing, rosacea often causes thickening of the skin in the nose, which can slowly change your facial appearance over the years. While you can take medication for rosacea and do things like stay out of the sun, you can also see a dermatologist for laser treatments. Here's how they work.

Lasers To Reduce Redness

The flushed red skin associated with rosacea results from tiny blood vessels close to the surface of your skin. A laser treatment targets these vessels in a way that causes them to close off and fade away. With fewer vessels so close to the skin, there is less redness and flushing to contend with. You'll probably need multiple laser treatments over the course of several weeks to get the full benefit of this therapy. You might not notice results right away because it takes some time for the vessels to be absorbed by your body once they've been injured by the laser light. This type of laser treatment could be a way to get relief from embarrassing skin redness, but it's possible you'll grow new vessels in the future and skin redness will return.

Laser Treatments To Remove Thick Skin

A different type of laser procedure can be used to sculpt the skin around your nose. One effect of rosacea is that it causes skin thickening, especially around the tip of your nose causing it to take on a bulbous appearance. Your dermatologist may be able to reverse this condition with a series of laser treatments that target the thick skin. The laser affects water held in the skin tissue, which in turn affects the skin. The result is thinning of the skin and the loss of excess tissue. This treatment tends to work better in the early stages of rosacea, before there is a lot of thick tissue to reshape.

Laser treatments are not always necessary to control rosacea. Your dermatologist can help in other ways such as prescribing oral medication or topical creams. However, when your symptoms persist, laser treatments could be the answer. Although, it's important to remember that the treatments don't actually cure rosacea, they just remove some of the symptoms such as redness and thick skin. Even after laser treatments, your rosacea may continue to come and go, but the effects won't be as noticeable on your skin.

For more information, you will want to contact a company such as Heibel Dermatology.