IPL: Why You Should Add This Treatment to Your Anti-Aging Regimen

Intense pulsed light (IPL) is a treatment that uses high-intensity light to create energy deep within the skin to help with dark pigmentation issues and wrinkles that often come about with age.

The technology has been around since 1996, and Dr. Franklin Rose of Utopia Med Spa has been helping men and women throughout the Houston, Texas area improve the texture of their skin with IPL for years.

Let’s look at the different ways IPL can help you look and feel younger.

Spots and discoloration on the skin

Spots and discoloration can make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. They can occur for a number of reasons and often increase with age. A primary application of IPL is improving the appearance of darks spots and skin discoloration.

IPL is able to specifically target skins cells that cause pigmentation issues, and the treatment is effective on the skin of the face, arms, and neck. It can help with a variety of conditions, including:

• Sunspots
• Age spots
• Sun damage
• Red spots

For many, spots and discoloration are common with age, but they’re not inevitable. IPL can provide you with clearer, younger-looking skin.

Wrinkles

As we age, the collagen layer beneath our skin begins to break down. The loss of this important connective tissue allows gravity to wreak havoc, resulting in sagging, wrinkled skin.

IPL can make a difference. The light from the treatment penetrates the top layer of skin and slightly burns the collagen layer. This damage prompts a healing response, which forces the collagen cells to reproduce, strengthening the connective tissue and adding more support for the skin.

IPL helps add volume to the treated area and makes your skin healthier and stronger.

What to expect from your IPL treatment

During an initial consultation, you meet with Dr. Rose and discuss your concerns and aesthetic goals. Together, you devise a treatment strategy that includes the number of IPL treatments you will likely need to see optimal results.

When you arrive for your first treatment, you can simply sit back and relax. Dr. Rose applies a gel to the treatment area, which gives the light emitter the best contact with your skin and provides Dr. Rose with more control over the light penetrating your body. He sets the emitter with the proper filters for your level of treatment and passes the handpiece over the treatment area.

After treatment, you may experience some slight reddening or even a little swelling, much like a sunburn, but this should subside on its own after a day or two.

IPL is safe and effective

Doctors have been using IPL for more than 20 years to improve the appearance and texture of their patients’ skin. As with any medical or cosmetic procedure, safety is always a top priority, and many men and women are concerned about how the light affects their skin.

By design, IPL wavelengths are longer than potentially harmful wavelengths, such as the sun’s UVA and UVB waves, so the IPL treatment is perfectly safe. Additional research on IPL shows that even with repeated treatments, skin doesn’t show any signs of damage.

If sun or age spots make you self-conscious or you’d like to add IPL treatment to your anti-aging regimen, call Utopia Med Spa or request an appointment online today.