Information Skin: IPL Experience

At the end of 2012, I had given up with treating and living with Rosacea using just skincare, and doctors appointments. I took things into my own hands. Doctors didn't think my condition was bad enough to warrant a referral to a dermatologist, and makeup is only a temporary fix. When you have rosacea it's not just about the redness, the boil type spots and 'how bad things can look'.

Similarly to suffering with Acne, you become incredibly self conscious and as sufferers will know, psychologically living with Rosacea it can be incredibly difficult to live with, not only when you are in the later stages of life (as is most common) but also when you're in your teens / early twenties surrounded by friends and magazines showing you a definition of the flawless face. Frustration after frustration, and the thousands of pounds spent on makeup, skincare and antibiotics etc over the years, 2013 brought me IPL.

From February to September of 2013 I was undergoing Intense Pulsed Light therapy to help treat my rosacea. I was excited that something would actually show me results and I was finally talking to people who knew what this skin complaint was, and understood how to get rid of it. In early 2013 I had paid £600 for 6 sessions of IPL and it was time to take some serious action.

I tried my best throughout the process to document stage by stage, and even got round to writing a couple of posts related to each session here. If you do want more information on IPL, you can find that in those posts. Here I really want to summarise in photos and text my experience as a whole.

The pictures aren't pretty, so please accept my apologies! Please take a look further down the post, to see in photos the changes in my skin. This is one of the reasons I started blogging to share this experience and am so glad if I can help anyone, who maybe in a similar situation or interested in these treatments.

Firstly, I have only used 5 of the 6 IPL sessions. The results for me were not really what I expected - my skin just didn't react enough, and the pain that IPL began to cause my skin was just not comfortable or pleasant and I remember during one session being close to tears, as I began to feel like  rosacea was just taking over my life - pretty much feeling bad for myself.

 The more inflamed your face is the more painful it will be when that ping of light targets that vein or area, I thought it would get better but it just didn't and the results were, compared to what I was told would happen, quite disappointing. In my case of targeting rosacea with IPL, it didn't work and isn't for my skin.

The experience is kind of like an elastic band being ping'd on your face, 15 times over depending on your complaint.  Sometimes they even felt like tiny injections. For me, for now I am trying to avoid the million and one things that can trigger rosacea flareups and manage the condition with great skincare. You can see my current morning skincare routine here.  Whilst I do think my skin has improved slightly from Sept to now, I would not say the IPL was solely responsible for that, which I thought it would be from the start.

As this is my review, and just a summary of my experience I really recommend before considering IPL you have a skin patch test and a full consultation with a skin specialist. It can be used to treat many different skin conditions.