McKeown Medical
167 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4SQ
How to get rid of sun damage
Published by Dr Darren McKeown
Date posted — 5.10.24
As always in medicine, the best treatment is prevention – which means avoiding the sun as much as possible and covering up and protecting the skin with SPF when it’s not possible to avoid sun exposure.
But let’s assume you maybe take care of your skin now, but you weren’t so good in your younger years, and you’ve got some historic sun damage that you want to get rid of.
How do you go about getting rid of that old sun damage on the face and body?
Laser Treatment for Sun Damage
The mainstay of treating sun damage is laser treatment, and there are three main categories of lasers you can use to treat sun damage.
Ablative Laser
The first category is ablative – which means that it removes tissue from the surface of the skin.
The ablative lasers can then be subdivided into fully ablative lasers – which remove the entire surface of the skin – and fractional ablative lasers, which remove only a fraction of the skin’s surface.
The final category is the non-ablative lasers, which don’t remove any tissue from the skin’s surface.
Let’s start with the non-ablative devices.
Non Ablative Laser Treatment
My favourite non-ablative way to treat sun-damaged skin anywhere on the body (we most commonly treat it on the face, but we can treat it pretty much anywhere on the body) is broadband light.
Ok, so technically, this is not a laser because it uses more than one wavelength of light. But let’s forget about the physics and think of it as a laser.
Treating Hyperpigmentation Caused by Sun Damage
Broadband light (BBL) is an excellent technology for shattering pigments in the skin, which gets rid of the brown spots or age spots or areas of hyperpigmentation if we want to use their technical name.
BBL is also excellent for reacting with the red pigment in blood vessels, causing the blood vessels to close down and clear patches of redness.
It is also an excellent stimulator of collagen renewal, improving the organisation of collagen and elastin fibres in the skin, which, over time, improves the texture of the skin’s surface.
BBL is by far and away my favourite treatment to prescribe in the clinic because pretty much anyone over the age of 30 benefits from it. There is usually no downtime at all, and it’s a relatively gentle treatment you can repeat every six months or so to keep your skin in great shape.
Laser Resurfacing for Sun Damage
If you have more severe changes to the texture of the skin, particularly with fine lines and wrinkles then we need to think about adding in some ablative laser resurfacing.
When the texture changes are more than we can deal with non-ablative laser treatment but not quite severe enough for full resurfacing, then a fractional ablative device is our go-to.
For this, I love the Halo laser from Sciton.
The unique thing about this device is that it combines two different lasers (one ablative and one non-ablative) that fire at the same time, meaning you can target different layers of the skin simultaneously.
We tend to be pretty aggressive in our approach with this, so most patients can expect 5-7 days of downtime, but when your skin is healed, you get the famous ‘Halo Glow’ and continued improvement in the surface of the skin for a few months later.
How to treat Severe Sun Damage?
For the most severe sun-damaged skin with deep lines and wrinkles that are really etched into the surface of the skin, however, we need to get out the big guns – the fully ablative laser.
This removes the entire surface of the skin so that the skin grows back like new again.
It’s an extremely effective treatment that can get rid of even the most stubborn wrinkles, however it is also the most invasive option that most people want to avoid.
For that reason, not many clinics offer this treatment, but for some patients, it’s just the right treatment and the only one that will give them the results they are looking for.
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Thank you once again to another lovely patient who has allowed us to share her photos with you.
She came to see me wanting a refresh and was open to suggestions, surgical and non-surgical. Her biggest concern however was wrinkles and lines and skin texture problems.
Surgery doesn’t help with this and injectables are limited too - the gold standard here is laser resurfacing, which is what we went with. We did a full field ablation of the full face including her eyelids.
This is her a month or so later. You can see she is still a bit red, especially around the eyes where we went the deepest, but she is already loving life with her new skin.
What do you think?
The non-surgical facelift!
You might have heard us talking a lot recently about combination treatments, using different treatment modalities to create synergy in non-surgical rejuvenation. The reason this works so well is that the different layers of the face age in different ways.
We focus a lot on skin tightening, which is super important, but that’s only the outer layer of the face. Below that the fat, bone and muscle are all changing too.
This lovely lady was relatively new to aesthetics and wanted a more comprehensive rejuvenation without surgery. We decided to do the combination approach using @sofwave.uk to tighten the skin of the face and neck, whilst using HA to restore volume to the fat and bone.
This is her a few months later - her whole face looks tighter, softer, less tired - but in a way that looks completely natural. She is delighted with the result that still looks like her, just a really refreshed version.
What do you think?
HA Fillers are making a comeback! Here are my thoughts on the how and why 👀
How long does a facelift last? One of the most common questions we hear, but it doesn’t have a straightforward answer. Here is our facelift expert @bramhallplasticsurgery talking about some of the nuance.
I’ve been getting lots of questions about what I’ve been up to with my own skin recently. So here you are… the full uncensored version 👀
Introducing Julaine - a new biostimulator I am very excited about!
To explain the background, we need to start with Sculptra - which is having a bit of a moment again on socials. Sculptra is made of PLLA which stimulates your own body to create more collagen, which sounds instantly appealing especially for patients who want to avoid HA fillers.
The problem is that 1 in 5 people who have Sculptra develop nodules which is why - despite the beautiful results we often see from it - I have never used it in my practice (at least not in the face). The trade off in terms of the risk of nodules is just too high for me to feel comfortable with.
We now have a new version, called Julaine, made from a Swedish company called Nordberg. The scientists at Nordberg have refined the manufacturing process to make the PLLA particles smaller and smoother and in doing so have eliminated the problems associated with Sculptra.
I have only just recently started working with Julaine (it’s been around for a couple of years now, but I never like to be the first to use it - I always want to make sure the real world data matches up to what the pharma companies tell us). The treatment is delivered over three sessions, one month apart, with gradual tissue regeneration and volumising occurring slowly over time.
The course of 3 sessions costs £3000 and results typically last up to 2 years. It’s a great addition for other regenerative treatments like Sofwave skin tightening. It’s also great for patients who’ve had HA fillers and feel like they need something else, but aren’t quite ready for more HA yet.
What do you think?
One of Dr Kavita’s breast reduction patients sent this gorgeous bouquet of flowers after her follow up - simply because she felt so grateful for her result and the care our team provided.
Moments like this remind us why we do what we do and why ‘how’ we do it is so important. Surgery has traditionally been a very male-dominated world, but Kavita brings something different - exceptional technical skill combined with empathy, warmth and a genuine understanding of women’s bodies and aesthetics.
There can be a lot of pressure on women in surgery to abandon their femininity to fit in. Kavita hasn’t done that. She’s succeeded by being completely herself.
And that’s exactly why our patients love her (and why we do too).
We’re very proud to have her as part of the McKeown Medical team.
This patient came to the clinic thinking she needed a facelift to get what she wanted. We do facelifts - lots of them. But for this patient, her biggest issue wasn’t loose skin.
It was skin quality, which is something we see a lot of, so we suggested she fix that first. This is the result. Fully ablative resurfacing isn’t easy, but for the right patient, it can be life-changing.
The patient is delighted with her results. What do you think?
Another gorgeous result for another gorgeous patient by the very talented @bramhallplasticsurgery.
This patient is 2 months post-op and loving life with her new eyelids. As well as looking better, she can see better because the weight of the excess skin has been removed. The patient is delighted.
What do you think?
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When you first make contact with us you will be assigned your own personal Patient Relationship Manager. They’ll start by understanding your needs and liaising with our doctors to book you an appointment with the most suitable specialist. For any additional questions or needs, you can message or call them anytime and they’ll be delighted to assist you. Our entire team is dedicated to providing you with the best possible treatment and care tailored to your needs.
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