LED Light Therapy Improves Acne Marks
One of the most vexing complaints of patients with acne is the red and brown spots that are left behind when acne pimples go away. They seem to resist all treatments and until now the only safe and minimally invasive therapy that really worked were superficial chemical peels. Besides these, dermabrasion, laser resurfacing, and non-ablative lasser therapy all had some successes and many failures and patients spent lots of money and time and experienced lots of frustration.
Surprisingly, a new treatment has come out of research from NASA and from wound healing. It is called LED light therapy. This is an offshoot of low level laser therapy. In the early 1990's clinical studies showed that lasers at low energy levels could aid wound healing. Scars could become smaller and less red. Muscles and tendons seemed to heal. The caveat was that the light always had to be in the visible light range- that is, the colors of the rainbow. I had used this modality to improve the results of liposculpture surgery and we have been doing so for the past 7 years. Then Dr. McDaniels considered that if low level lasers could work, why not low level lights. Our first attempts at using them were woefully inadequate and the general opinion in the medical community is that they don't work. Manufacturers tried to change how the light was delivered and made unsubstantiated claims that there machine had the secret formula.
About a year ago my esthetician was able to get an LED light machine and we began trying to use it at varying colors in combination with light chemical peels. First we tried it on acne and these patients seemed to get better, even without pills. Then we decided to tackle post inflammatory pigmentation, the dreaded marks that acne leaves behind. To our surprise we got excellent results. To date we have treated about 12 patients and all have done very well. The duration of each treatment is 30-45 minutes and patients come in twice weekly for 2-4 weeks and then at less frequent intervals. So far, all of our patients have had marked improvement in less that 12 weeks and all of our patients have spent $1000.00 or less.
My one concern is that our protocol is more of an art than science and we will have to quantitate how to use this new technology. Nevertheless, this is the new standard at MetropolitanMD and we hope to publish our results within the next 6 months.
Surprisingly, a new treatment has come out of research from NASA and from wound healing. It is called LED light therapy. This is an offshoot of low level laser therapy. In the early 1990's clinical studies showed that lasers at low energy levels could aid wound healing. Scars could become smaller and less red. Muscles and tendons seemed to heal. The caveat was that the light always had to be in the visible light range- that is, the colors of the rainbow. I had used this modality to improve the results of liposculpture surgery and we have been doing so for the past 7 years. Then Dr. McDaniels considered that if low level lasers could work, why not low level lights. Our first attempts at using them were woefully inadequate and the general opinion in the medical community is that they don't work. Manufacturers tried to change how the light was delivered and made unsubstantiated claims that there machine had the secret formula.
About a year ago my esthetician was able to get an LED light machine and we began trying to use it at varying colors in combination with light chemical peels. First we tried it on acne and these patients seemed to get better, even without pills. Then we decided to tackle post inflammatory pigmentation, the dreaded marks that acne leaves behind. To our surprise we got excellent results. To date we have treated about 12 patients and all have done very well. The duration of each treatment is 30-45 minutes and patients come in twice weekly for 2-4 weeks and then at less frequent intervals. So far, all of our patients have had marked improvement in less that 12 weeks and all of our patients have spent $1000.00 or less.
My one concern is that our protocol is more of an art than science and we will have to quantitate how to use this new technology. Nevertheless, this is the new standard at MetropolitanMD and we hope to publish our results within the next 6 months.
posted by Edward Lack MD at 9:05 AM
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