Intense Pulsed Light Therapy

Intense pulsed light therapy or IPL for short is a form of laser therapy which emits pulses of high intensity light at an area of the skin. The difference between IPL and other lasers is the wavelength: IPL lasers emit numerous wavelengths of light at a target area of skin.

Your dermatologist/practitioner will discuss the procedure with you, outlining the benefits and the side effects.

How does IPL work?

The energy emitted by an IPL laser heats the target area of skin, damaging the cells, thread veins or varicose veins. The treated area gradually fades or in the case of varicose veins, shuts off completely. The closed veins can then be removed.

The IPL laser is a hand held device which the specialist will apply to your skin, delivering short bursts of light. You will feel a tingling sensation during the treatment.

A treatment session takes from several minutes to an hour or more.

After the treatment

Your skin will have a pinkish appearance and there may be some mild discomfort. But this eases within a day or so.

There is a risk of blisters or a change to your skin colour but this only occurs if too much light energy is absorbed by the skin. The affected skin recovers a period of time.