Photodynamic Therapy: Stories

I had deep an pervasive adult acne that was not responding to antibiotics or topical creams, so my doctor suggested this procedure some years ago. I had three or four treatments. The entire procedure was slapdash and not controlled at all, and my skin ended up damaged and more aged than it was when I started. I ended up with those fine crinkle lines everywhere, so who cares whether my acne imporved or not? My face was first abraded with acetone -- splashed on a rough brown paper towel from the office wash sink -- and rubbed **hard** on my skin. The tech who did this managed to get acetone in my eye once! Then the doctor would come in, after a wait, of course, and apply the Levulan, and then I had to wait half an hour or more while the Levulan did its thing. During one treatment the idiot tech forgot about me at this point and everyone in the office went home. I went out into the hall to find out where everyone had gone...someone ran and got the doc out of his car in the parking lot. Very unprofessional. Anyway, after a long wait, the tech would come in and place me in a chair in front of the blue light. There was no head brace or other way to control how close my face was to the light, and I suspect that was what caused the **severe** burning I had with one of the treatments. In fact, the cord for the light was too short so that I had to sort of lean my head out into the arc of light -- this was a truly Mickey Mouse operation at that time. When I called the office to ask whether the burn was normal, I got the incompetent tech, who said something noncommittal and hung up. I was in extreme pain, with huge blisters and weeping skin. All of my skin fell off in sheets. My skin broke out in huge cysts. Another light treatment did almost nothing to my skin -- was I seated too far from the light? All together, I'd say this was a mistake for me, and I have never gone into that dermatology clinic since. There are better treatments available now. It did help clear the areas of deep acne that were continuously erupting around my mouth and chin, but the cost to my skin's overall health and appearance was too great.