Can IPL Make Stretch Marks Worse?

Striae or stretch marks are due to relatively rapid expansion of skin and/or significant loss of collagen due to corticosteroid. Fresh stretch marks may be red (or vascular) and IPL may be mildly helpful in getting them to become more blanched and white. That is pretty much it. I would start with prescription strength topical retinoid which can help to stimulate collagen and subtly improve texture of stretch marks. Ongoing studies are underway to confirm few anectodal reports of successful treatment of stretch marks with Fractional CO2 laser resurfacing.

Our office has many different treatments for scars depending on the depth of atrophy or hypertrophy. Scars require a combination approach using our HI DEF protocol which uses a combination of lasers, topical scar modulation, and RF treatments to pixelate scars, improve contour, reduce hyperpigmentation, and improve the visibility of the scars so that they are no longer visible in ambient light. Everyone has a unique pattern of scarring and we employ our HIDEF technique to improve texture, color, contour, and topography. We often use a combination of treatments that begin with a careful examination to examine the micro texturing of the acne scars. Atrophic scars and indented scars can benefit from injectable fillers such as Radiesse, Sculptra, and Restylane with or without subcision to remove tethered scars and atrophic depression. Hyper-redness in scars can be improved with V beam laser, Excel V, BBL, IPL, and Venus RF to improve the redness and reduce the visibility of deep scars. Fractional Thulium laser and clear & brilliant can also reduce the inflammation and redness of the scar when combined with topical therapy. Fractional lasers such as Fraxel, erbium, and CO2 laser can be combined with radio frequency and also fractional RF to improve textual issues and microtopography. Subcision and TCA cross are also used for deep ice pick scars and narrow valley scars in order to improve the micro texture. Above all, our combination approach with our clinical nurses and board-certified plastic surgeons can improve the quality of your skin by using at home Melarase creams combined with PRP treatments in our office to improve your skin quality and tone. I recommend getting a formal evaluation with an experienced team of experts in order to reduce your scarring.

Finally, hyperpigmentation of scars can be improved with at-home Melarase AM, Melarase PM, and Melapads to help reduce active PIH and melanin deposition.

Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

IPL should not make stretch marks worse.  However, there are few treatments that will make these straie better.  IPL and laser therapy can reduce redness or pigmentation of stretch marks, but will not entirely alleviate them.  These are challenging problems.  A conservative treatment regimen includes topical retinoids. 

IPL treatment might improve the appearance of your stretch marks slightly if your stretch marks are still red.  It is highly unlikely that it would make the appearance of your stretch marks worse.  There are some other modalities that might help your stretch marks, such as retinoid creams and some lasers.  Unfortunately at this time we do not have a way to markedly improve the appearance of stretch marks, although many patients are happy with moderate improvement.

We have been treating Stretch marks with lasers for the past 5 years and we have never seen any that have gotten worse because of Laser treatments. Many have not responded well, but we do not know any reason why they would get worse.
Stretch marks are extremely difficult to treat, especially if you have the thin, white or silvery type. We have treated many different stretch marks successfully and a good many without any appreciable results as well. The easiest type of marks to revise are new stretch marks that are pink (Caucasians) or brown (Hispanics, Asians and African Americans).
We have also had pretty good results revising the texture of marks - making them less rough and deep. But, thin white stretch marks with less color than the surrounding tissue are extremely difficult to treat and we do not have a good solution for them currently.
We do not use IPL to treat stretch marks. We use the following:

Pulsed dye lasers (red/textured stretch marks)
Q-switched lasers (brown/textured stretch marks)
Aramis laser(textured stretch marks)

IPL will not make your stretch marks worse.  You may even get a little bit of tightening.  The heat produced by IPL is not enough to do much at all for stretch marks, but it certainly won't make them worse.

I haven't seen IPLs make stretch marks worse, not to discount your experience.  Initially they may appear more red and perhaps swollen such that the stretch marks will appear worse but over time, it should improve-by how much?  that's hard to say.  I prefer to use a fractionated laser such as Fraxel or Profractional to improve stretch marks.  It does a decent job on them depending on the severity.  VBeam also does a good job on new onset stretch marks.  Good luck to you, hope this information helps!

IPL should have no untoward affectws on your stretch marks.  There really is no good solution to treat stretch marks.

Improving stretch marks is difficult. Using a light based treatment to achieve this can be difficult. The idea is that the energy from the IPL will turn on some amount of collagen growth and treat any redness from visible vessels in the area.  Realistic expectations are the key when trying to treat stretch marks and some other devices may be more helpful.  As far as making you worse , That would be unusual and unexpected. 

Stretch marks are NOT marks, they represent permanent CRACKS through the skin. These appear after rapid skin expansion (pregnancy, obesity, certain disorders such as Cushing's etc). As such, they cannot be erased by ANY modality (lasers, IPL,creams, lotions, rollers, pills, yoga etc, etc)
The ONLY thing we can do for them with IPL or lasers is to reduce the amount of blood vessels that run through these cracks and thereby render them white/silver earlier. Period. Attempts to shrink them are on-going but in my opinion have been much MORE predictably successful at shrinking the size of YOUR purse.
Intense Photo Light will not hurt the stretch marks but is just another way to separate you from your hard earned money, in my opinion.