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Intense Pulsed Light or IPL is a system of using light energy to heat the blood in the thread veins, causing the heat to destroy the wall of the thread veins.
In some ways it can be thought of as being like laser. The difference is that laser uses only one wavelength of light whereas Intense Pulsed Light uses all of the different wavelengths making up white light. However, when using IPL to treat thread veins, the red pigment in the blood (the haemoglobin) absorbs blue light better than red light which it reflects. Therefore to make sure there is more of the blue and green sort of light which treats the veins best, a filter is used on the IPL to filter out the colours that are not needed.
The light energy is very intense, transferring a very large amount of power to the blood in a very short space of time, causing it to heat up and destroy the vein wall. Therefore, if this were the only thing the machine did, we would call it Intense Light (IL).
The pulsed part of the Intense Pulsed Light is a very important part of the treatment process. The light energy is delivered in a series of pulses. This means that the blood in a thread vein absorbs the light during the pulse, but in the gap between the pulses the skin is allowed to cool down. By measuring the number of pulses, the amount of energy that is put into each pulse and the amount of time that the light is off between the pulses, an expert is able to make sure that the maximum energy is delivered into the thread veins to give the best chance of destroying them, whilst keeping the skin as cool as possible meaning there is much less risk of damage to the surrounding skin.
In general terms, the whiter the skin the more light it reflects and therefore the easier thread veins are to treat.
For Intense Pulsed Light treatment of facial thread veins, it is usually necessary to use three to five sessions. After each session the veins will start to resolve but as they start to heal, the next session keeps fading them away, so that after three to five sessions there should be a substantial improvement. Usually the sessions are two to three weeks apart to allowing healing between the sessions.
When IPL is performed, the person doing it will put some eye protection on you and themselves and some cooling gel on the skin. This is put on for two reasons; the first to cool the skin during treatment and the second to provide a good contact between the IPL treatment head and the area of skin to be treated.
During the IPL there is an intense flash of light and this may be repeated many times, depending on the area that needs to be treated.
In most people there is quite a strong red reaction after the treatment has finished in the area of treatment, as this is really like a patch of localised sunburn. Therefore for a few days afterwards it could be quite tender. However, as this settles down the desired effect should be seen.
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