Skin discoloration
Skin tone or "complexion" is the dominant color of the facial skin. This correlates well with Fitzpatrick skin types where lighter complexions are lower numbered skin types and darker types are the higher numbered types. Fitzpatrick skin typing is actually a way of categorizing skin based on how it reacts to light exposure. The higher types tend to tolerate greater amounts of exposure but also can overreact and darken unevenly, especially when using light-based treatments.
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Even skin tone, along with smooth skin, is generally seen as younger and healthier appearing than skin with varying colors, irregular markings and wrinkles. Tanning, whether outdoors or in a tanning bed is a major factor in drying the skin and triggering irregular skin tones and pigmented lesions.
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Sun avoidance and sunscreen use are tantamount to good skin tone. Prevention is easier than treatment. Not to worry, as there are numerous topical treatments and energy-based treatments to improve your skin tone and texture. From mild to fully ablative treatments, most of these irregularities can be eliminated or significantly reduced.
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Treatment of skin tone concerns begins with reducing inflammation, which artificially causes red discoloration. Hydrate. Using gentle cleansers and a moisturizer are the initial steps to control this. You may also require prescription anti-inflammatory medication or light-based therapy to reduce the inflammation.
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Once inflammation is controlled, we move on to removing irregular pigmentation. We work on this for 3 months then enter a maintenance period. If your skin tone is sufficiently even, you stay in the maintenance stage until new irregularities develop. If you didn't achieve the tone, you were hoping for in the tone improvement phase, we return to it in 4 weeks and continue this cycle until you have reached the skin tone you desire.
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We have over the counter and prescription topicals available and offer Opus plasma, Harmony laser/IPL, Pixel CO2 laser, LightStim red/blue LED light and Morpheus8 RF/Microneedling to treat these concerns. Please see here for more information.
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