I Am Booked for PDT in 2 Months Time, Whats the Average Incubation Time for Levulan with Blu Light?

I am female, fair skinned, prone to broken veins & have uneven redness in my skin tone, never had acne or any other complaints, I've tried laser genesis and IPL for the redness and now PDT is recommended with 1 hour incubation of Levulan before blu light treatment. I am wondering whether this may help, what is the average incubation time, they orginally said 3 hours. I was concerned about such a long incubation time as my skin is very reactive. Is 1 hour long enough to show good results?

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2 Doctor Answers | Asked by robbie6

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1 hour incubation for PDT often sufficient

I find that a one hour incubation time after appropriately preparing the skin is often sufficient. Three hours is quite long, and the reaction with activation will be fairly intense. It sounds like your practitioner feels your redness is from pre-cancerous lesions since they are recommending activation using the blue light. If the redness is from dilated veins as well, you may see better results if you activate it using the IPL.

Pulsed dye laser may be better for redness

Based on your description you may want to consider treatment with a pulsed dye laser. I feel it is superior to both laser genesis and IPL for reduction of facial rednes and veins. I do not routinely use PDT for facial redness - that seems like overkill to me. PDT is best used for acne and actinic keratosis (pre-cancerous skin growths). Treatment with the pulsed dye laser usually has limited downtime and risk. PDT causes extreme light sensitivity for 24-48 hours and may have... more