V Beam: Stories
Write a ReviewV Beam For Facial Redness
- Nelle9985
- posted 2 years ago
- updated 1 month ago
- Worth It
- Cost: $350
- Elizabeth F. Rostan, MD (Charlotte, NC)
The flushing and redness on my entire body...
- 15 Feb 2011
The flushing and redness on my entire body increasingly gets worse, so I opted for V Beam laser treatments for both aesthetic and lifestyle comfort purposes.
I had a second VBeam treatment today with Sue at...
- 12 Aug 2011
I had a second VBeam treatment today with Sue at The Laser and Skin Center in Virginia Beach. I am very pleased with her aggressive treatment, although I have a lot more swelling this go around.
My Doctor: Elizabeth F. Rostan, MD
My rating:
Dr. R and her staff were amazingly informative and was the first dermatologist to actually spend time and explain options for my keratosis pilaris and rosacea. I live almost 90 minutes from her office, and I am willing to make the drive for superb quality of skin care.
You can always inquire about their training. I asked my tech about hers, and she said she graduated from a laser technician school. I am sure the doctor also over-saw a lot of her treatments for a period of weeks before letting her practice unsupervised.
As for aggressiveness, some people prefer not to have an aggressive treatment due to excessive purpura. The lower the laser setting, the less aggressive the procedure will be, resulting in less dramatic results. Since I was spending the money, I requested a more aggressive treatment.
My second Vbeam treatment was performed by an RN at a plastic surgeon's office in Virginia Beach, and she overlapped the laser treatments creating a more even skine tone. However, my results from Charlotte are the most prominent.
I guess I wonder how do I know if the tech is properly trained. Even so, I want the doctor and already dread insisting such or the nest treatment. At Charlotte Skin and Laser I was told the techs do the treatment (Vbeam). And, how do I know if the treatment is aggressive?
My results still show to this day, even though I wish the tech overlapped my treatment.
Good luck on your treatment, and be sure to keep me posted!
http://www.hautarztzentrum-muenchen.de/home/home.html
i'm very happy you got good results! strange, i've never heard of using a vibrating tool before laser before! hopefully those circles aren't too bad... are they that noticeable? i'd love to see your result after the bruising went away! i'll be posting before and after pics very soon. best wishes :)
Oddly enough, I enjoy St Ives products more than Aveeno. St Ives apricot scrub irritates my skin LESS than Aveeno face washes. Word has it Cetaphil is a great gentle cleanser. I follow up my morning shower with CeraVe body lotion to add hydration back into my skin, and that works fairly well. Hempz is also wonderful!
Has anyone heard of the Rosacea Institute of Texas? Dr. Nielsen seems to have wonderful results with his Yag laser, but many forums condemn him and his practice for a variety of reasons. Shrugs*
To be honest, I don't believe avoidance is completely realistic. I have gone weeks without consuming alcohol and caffeine and noticed no reduction in my flushing. Heat and anxiety are the number one causes of my flushing/blushing. My physician recently started me on 10mg of Buspar to better manage the anxieties, so hopefully within the next week I will notice an improvement.
Eric, do you have very sensitive skin? Sometimes I compare my skin with that of a red head with the exception of being able to tan moderately. It won't take much to induce the redness, and you know, it's not entirely the flushing episode that bothers me -- it's the fear of people saying, "wow, you got some sun girl!" The ironic thing was I had not been out in the sun for nearly a year. LOL!
On an ending note, cover up make up is my best friend. 8-)
My skin is very sensitive - I've had ezcema since I was a child (now it's mostly on my calves), and after taking Accutane at 19 my skin became even more dry and sensitive. I can't use most soaps because they over-dry my skin and cause more ezema, especially on my hands. My parents, both doctors, thought I must be obsessively washing my hands when I was a child to cause such severe ezema. In reality, I was just using bar soap without moisturizing afterwards. So I stopped using bar soap and infrequently used shampoo or liquid soap. I think one of the reasons I needed Accutane is because I hadn't found a soap that wouldn't overdry my skin, and I didn't get one until the Dermatologist who prescribed Accutane recommended Vanicream soap. I didn't like the oily residue it left, so I didn't use it as religously as I should have.
Now I use a liquid soap formulated specifically for people with ezcema, SebaMed, which I read about in the Costco magazine. The doctor who created it heard about his patients who couldn't use regular soaps and thus weren't using any soap at all (like me), and created a soap that matched the 5.5 pH of the skin (slightly acidic). Most soaps have higher pH that neutralizes the skin's protective acidity.
One of the doctors on RealSelf mentioned that ezcema treatments seem to help roscea patients, so I tried Aveeno Eczema Therapy . It has helped calm the worst red rash-like patches I've had from rosacea and is much less expensive than other effective moisturizers like La Roche-Posay Toleraine Fluid. Dermatologist Leslie Baumann wrote an article that recommended La Roche-Posay Thermal Spring Water to calm redness, and since it has the same selenium-containing spring water as the Toleraine Fluid but for a much lower price per ounce, I'm going to try misting the Thermal Spring Water to see if it helps. I bet that would help you since your flushing affects a larger area that would be too time consuming or expensive to cover with Toleraine Fluid.
Thanks for the update, Shaunelle. I had my 3rd and most aggressive V beam treatment 9 days ago, and there is still some remaining red/black bruising. (The 2nd treatment was right before a really stressful time, and that stress seems to have muted the benefit of the treatment.) It does look like V beam helps but isn't a miracle cure, and I need to be religious about using topicals (Finacea/azelaic acid or alcohol-free salicylic acid) to keep the pores clean and low-dose doxycycline to prune excessive blood vessels (anti-angiogenic effect). I take 20mg of doxycycline hyclate twice a day, which is equivalent to the Oracea dose but available as a generic drug.
I quit drinking coffee and switched to matcha green tea and cut back on red wine to minimize flushing. I also bought a juicer and have been adding juiced kale and other vegetables to my diet. There's a great movie on Netflix called "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" where the main character had a rash-like skin condition and had to radically switch his diet to fix it and get off prednisone. I'm not suggesting you go on a juice fast (I haven't so far), but it's worth considering whether there are other dietary changes that could help reduce your flushing.
so are the results from your first two vbeams not lasting? your pics make it look like there was a lot of improvement. good call on the juicing!
There was lasting improvement from the first two V beams (the painfull flushing is gone), but I was told it usually takes 3-4 treatments to resolve rosacea that has painfull flushing. Also, most of the benefit of the 2nd treatment was negated because I had a very stressful period right after and that caused a lot of anxiety-driven flushing. Taking it easy in the first 2 weeks after the treatment is important for best results.