NLite Laser helped with daughter's cystic acne
I posted here in September 2003, telling a tale of my 19 year old daughter's severe cystic acne. She had acne problems for several years, and I thought it was pretty bad before, but this September it exploded all over her face. That's what it look like, like her face had exploded. Both sides of her face were so inflamed with severe cystic acne, at some times it looked like it was a big inflamed red rash over both cheeks. Her face hurt. She said just brushing up against it was painful, and when someone bumped it during cheerleading practice, it was agonizing. The derm she was seeing had been treating her mostly with antibiotics. She had been talking about Accutane, and when she saw the cystic acne really break out, she was trying one more antibiotic, and the next stop was the Accutane Express, and even so she said that the severity of the cystic acne likely indicated she'd have scarring.
My daughter was a little apprehensive about Accutane, and so when we saw an article in Prevention magazine about how the FDA had approved this new NLite Laser treatment, we looked into it after it was obvious the "one last antibiotic" wasn't working. After reading up about it on the web, we went to the USA Photonics website, and found there was a physician the next town over from where we live. We went there that Saturday, and I could tell my daughter wanted to try it... it held out hope. So, after stopping back at home to talk it over with my wife, we all decided to go for it, and we drove back to the doctor's office.
She had one treatment in November, then a follow-up visit six weeks later. The inflammation went down drastically by that time, but she still had active acne, so the doctor decided to give her another treatment. This Saturday we had the six week followup to that treatment. It's amazing what the laser did to the cystic acne. At this time, she has only a few pimples here and there. Her cheeks, which had been an inflamed mess of cysts, are smooth. Unfortunately, she's left with redness where the cysts were, and also with indentations. The doctor treated the areas of her face that still had a little active acne, and he used the NLite Laser at a different setting on her scarred cheeks.
For now, she's using some topical products that are supposed to help with scarring, and he did use the NLite Laser for that purpose, too, I suppose chiefly for it's ability to stimulate collagen production. So now, I want us to keep on top of this and hit any new acne hard before it can do any more damage, and we need to work on the scarring. I just wanted to check back in with this report on how NLite really helped with her severe cystic acne. I wish we knew about this treatment when the cysts started to come out this September... I hope she hasn't been scarred too badly... I suppose we have to wait a bit to see since it's only recently that the cysts have cleared up.
- A Dad who Wants2Help
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- A Dad who Wants2Help
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