The Cosmetic Channel™ Now On MetropolitanMD Website

Dr. Rachel and I are excited to announce the inclusion of The Cosmetic Channel™ on our website, www.metropolitanmds.com . The Cosmetic Channel™ is the brainchild of Donald Griswold, a marketing consultant and web site content developer, who is now working with MetropolitanMD as its creative director. We believe that combining the expertise of Dr. Rachel and myself with the creative talent of Mr. Griswold gives us an opportunity to further educate our patients regarding the nature of cosmetic enhancements.
The cosmetic field is now so diverse that virtually no one can understand its ramifications let alone distinguish the hype from the real. Dr. Rachel and I have dedicated our practice to educating the public so that they can make efficient choices that meet their needs and their pocketbooks.
The Cosmetic Channel™ is an example of our commitment to you. Each month you can go on our website, www.metropolitanmds.com , and click on The Cosmetic Channel™ button. There you will see video broadcasts explaining cosmetic procedures and techniques. After watching these video vignettes you are welcome to continue to browse our website and click on the procedure of your choice for more information. And of course, we welcome your e-mails from the contact page on our website.
We hope you will enjoy this educational addition and I look forward to your comments.

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.