Sunpots, also called age spots or liver spots, can appear without rhyme or reason. One day you can have nice healthy-looking patch of skin and the next you have skin with a brown spot or two that can be quite large. You can relax, they are not cancers but have the medical name lentigines and there is something that can be done about them.
With the advances in both cryosurgery and laser therapy, you have alternatives that did not exist even 15 or 20 years ago when you had to accept age spots and live with them. Today, though, there are some surgical and medical techniques you can try that will put an end to the age spot problem, provided, of course, you stay out of the sun and then you have to begin all over again.
Generally, you can class the solutions to age spots into medical and surgical. The medical solutions include bleaches and lightening creams and peels, while the favored surgical procedures are cytoplast and laser therapy.
Bleaches and lightening creams are probably the easiest on your body but they are also the most time consuming because you have to remember to do them at specified times and several times a day, especially if you have a number of dark spots that require treatment. You have to remember that if you let up on the creams and bleaches for even a short time, then you will find that you have a relapse.
A chemical peel, under a doctor or skilled nurse practitioner’s care, is probably the next best thing and more long lasting. With a peel, a special gel or chemical is brushed onto the affected area and is then taken off with very light debilitating and defrauding strips and sponges. This works by taking the top layer of skin off, as well as the age spot and exposing the younger layers of skin underneath. You will probably find you skin reddened and some tenderness.
Surgically, the two favored surgical methods now are cytoplast and laser therapy.
In cytoplast, an area is anesthetized and a cyroprobe is inserted into the area of the sunspot and the area is frozen and the surface skin and the sunspot are removed. It is pretty quick and painless.
With laser surgery, the proper laser is aimed at the spot and the area is exposed to the laser light several times, literally taking the sunspot out from the bottom up and removing it. It is now the preferred method of handling this, as it is minimally invasive.
As in all of this, be sure you see the proper professional and then make sure you stay out of the sun or else you’ll be doing it all over again.
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