Friday, June 19, 2015

Red Light Therapy For Wrinkles

By Elaine Guthrie


It's easy to fill an entire medicine closet or vanity with anti-aging skincare and beauty products such as creams, liquids and lotions. There are likewise many surgical and cosmetic procedures that can temporarily get rid of aging symptoms such as wrinkles. One new and rather innovative technique is red light therapy for wrinkles.

It is an established science that phototherapy, also known as heliotherapy, is able to help patients suffering from a range of disorders. This includes skin problems like acne and eczema, healing of open wounds, and even cancer. It's also been effectively used for helping people suffering from stress, depression or sleep disorders.

Phototherapies typically come under one of two broad categories. The non-targeted type is where the patient is asked to get more and regular exposure to sunlight, which can be direct or through a lightbox that reflects sunlight. On the other hand, targeted types of therapies focus intense rays of light from sources such as lamps, LEDs and lasers on a particular patch of skin.

So red light therapy comes under this targeted type, focused on the wrinkled skin around the eyes. At this point, one important thing to remember is that these are not infrared rays that are invisible to the naked eye. German researchers at the University of Ulm conducted a study that proved beyond doubt how red spectrum visible rays are beneficial in combating medical ailments.

It's all about elastin. This protein is what keeps skin elastic by controlling the producing of collagen as needed. When a person starts aging, these elastin fibers go out of whack and there's not collagen to help the skin bounce back, both literally and figuratively. The end result is that the skin is increasingly more stretched and baggy, and this is what is called wrinkles.

The root cause of the problem is that as a person ages, water layers surrounding the elastin fibers change and disrupt the normal functioning. Under such situations, when a particular patch of skin gets subjected to high-intensity visible light rays, the blood circulation gets a sudden boost and the elastin is freed up to continue its work. More collagen gets produced, and the skin will quickly regain its normal health.

The process is simple, non-invasive and completely painless. Areas of the skin which have wrinkles or wounds will heal quickly. Other areas that are normal will gain a healthy sheen because of the extra collagen production.

Beauty salons and skincare clinics today have FDA-approved devices for phototherapy treatments. It's also possible to buy devices that can help people do the same thing at home. This will be a headgear unit that subjects the area around the eyes to the rays, along with goggles that keep the eyes safe.

It is advisable to use phototherapy devices only for a very short duration. It's helpful when used as suggested, but overuse where high-intensity light is focused on a small part of the skin will cause harm. The typical recommended usage is for one-minute treatments for three or at most four times a day. Anyone with other skin disorders or medical conditions should first consult with their physician or dermatologist.




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