Is it normal liquid nitrogen treatment caused age spots to blister?

The purpose of treatment with liquid nitrogen is to remove or destroy the superficial layers where the lesion is located. In doing so, a blister can form and is a common response to this freezing therapy. Keeping the skin hydrated with a topical antibiotic ointment or Vitamin E Oil will help the body with the healing process.

Hello,
It's not unusual to experience blistering of the skin for warts, sun spots, etc. when using liquid nitrogen. Unfortunately, this is a standard dermatology treatment approach for any number of skin conditions. We choose not to "freeze" b/c of the risk of blistering, scarring, and non-responder rate. Sun spots are better treated with a laser that was actually designed to be target-specific in seeing the cells of color. Using heat, the cells are forced to crust up and fall off the skin within 7 to 10 days. Very rarely will there be a blister when done correctly and is far less damaging to surrounding skin vs freezing when done correctly,.

Please see below link for B&A photos

Blistering is part of the process when using liquid nitrogen on actinic keratosis (age spots)

Take care that you stay out of the sun or cover the treated area to prevent additional discomfort or post treatment pigmentation.

Those with more than a few age spots may want to consider other types of treatment that cover larger areas. Fraxel is one option that's FDA cleared for actinic keratosis (though generally not covered by insurance).

Thanks for your question.  It depends on how aggressively your dermatologist froze the lesions.  If they were actinic keratoses, and quite thick, we usually freeze them long enough to cause a small blister or inflammatory reaction, so the body will take care of any residual pre-cancerous cells while healing the specifically performed mild skin injury.  As far as "why would someone use old technology", some patients can't afford laser treatments, and some dermatologists don't have time to pull out an expensive and time consuming laser treatment in a busy clinic day, and have the liquid nitrogen sitting right on the counter.  If the freezing is for cosmetic improvement, a good dermatologist will know how to freeze the lesions appropriately, usually not causing a blister, and the lentigines, or brown spots, will just peel off in a few days without a lot of injury to the underlying skin.  If the lesions were seborrheic keratoses, it takes a more aggressive freeze to make those go away nicely, or sometimes we use Eskata, which is a lovely new treatment for raised seborrheic keratoses.  We take each patient's financial concerns into account, and always try to do the safest and most effective treatment.  Age spots come in many varieties, so please ask your dermatologist if there are other options if you don't like the outcome from liquid nitrogen.  Best of luck!

Thanks for your question.  Liquid nitrogen burns the skin to remove whatever.  Blistering is a normal part of the healing process.  I'm not sure why doctors are still using technology from last century that doesn't yield predictable results on age spots.  We have seen many patients after nitrogen treatments with Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation.  Consider some IPL PhotoFacial or PicoSure FOCUS treatments next time to treat your age spots.  I hope this helps.