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Find a Rosacea
Treatment Specialist
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 | | The Patient’s Guide™ to Rosacea is the most respected online publication providing information about facial redness & rosacea, its management and treatment, and its symptoms. Our mission is to provide you, our reader, with unbiased, scientifically accurate information about rosacea, its causes and symptoms, as well as potential treatments. | | | >>More About the Patient's Guide | |
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Flushing, Redness & Blushing Best Treated with Lasers |
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The redness and flushing which is probably the most prominent and common feature of rosacea is, in my opinion, best treated with lasers. Linear blood vessels, those little spider veins on the face, can be very effectively treated with a long pulse duration, pulsed-dye laser or 532nm KTP Nd:YAG laser. Generalized, diffuse redness can also be removed with laser treatment. Several laser sessions may be needed to complete treatment, however most patients see a significant improvement following one session. Studies also have demonstrated that laser treatments can improve the pimples associated with rosacea. If a patient makes an effort to avoid sun exposure which will aggravate rosacea (by wearing a strong sunscreen daily), blood vessels may not return for years. |
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Does it Hurt? Slightly uncomfortable, not painful. Most people find the treatment tolerably annoying or slightly uncomfortable. It's not uncomfortable enough that I ever use topical numbing creams prior to treatment. Pain thresholds vary, and in my practice I find that men tend to have lower thresholds for pain than women, but rarely does anyone complain about the pain of the laser treatment.
What are the recovery times? There is no downtime for the laser treatment. Side-effects can include swelling which lasts from 15 minutes to four days, but usually lasts from two to six hours, and some redness which usually lasts for an hour or two after treatment. Purpura, or bruising, can occur and that can last from four to seven days.
Physician Experience Is Essential Treating the diffused generalized redness of rosacea requires some skill as opposed to treating the linear facial veins. If one over-treats an area, one can see the footprints of the laser treatment. Circular marks can be seen where the laser passed with over-treatment, so it takes skill to treat it properly. If a patient gets over-treated it can give the illusion that they have been scarred, but they're not actually scarred. The reason for this is that people with very light skin, like me, get most of the color in their skin from this redness. If a doctor over-treats that redness it can leave white marks that look like scarring, but in fact are the skin's normal color. The way to fix this, believe it or not, is to get additional laser treatments. It is very important to see a physician who is experienced in using lasers when treating rosacea.
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Find a Rosacea Treatment Specialist
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Dr. Bernstein explains how he believes laser to be the treatment of choice for Rosacea
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