Teribble Cold Sore After Three Sessions of IPL, Can I Do IPL in the Future?

When you do IPL in the future, I would recommend that you start taking the antiviral medication (i.e. acyclovir) a few days prior to your procedure.  

Those prone to cold sores (herpes infections) can be treated with prescription oral antiviral medications prior to treatment and after treatment. 

You can still get treatments but you should just pretreat yourself with antivirals several days before and continue after your treatment.  The virus lies dormant in your nerve endings so they can come out anytime there is trauma, decrease immune system, etc. 

 

Dr. Grant Stevens        Marina Plastic Surgery Associates          Marina del Rey, CA     

The Institute

 

If you have a history of cold sores, you should start taking antiviral pills 2 days before your IPL treatment and continue for a week after your treatment to prevent a recurrence.  Be sure to avoid the sun as well.

It is possible to have a flare of herpes after a wide variety of procedures on the face including peels, lasers IPL etc.  It is nothing to be too concerned about - but you should from now on take acyclovir ( or one of the other antiviral agents) from the day before any procedure for a total of 10 days.  This will prevent any further outbreaks related to the procedure.  This is standard practice and is nothing unusual.  I provide a prescription for acyclovir for all my laser cases even if they have never had a herpes outbreak.

Yes, just go on one of the anti virals such s Zovirax or Valtrex 5 days before and  5 days after and you will do just fine.    There is also a Zovirax ointment but this is not really necessary as the oral medications will protect you.  Obviously if you have active cold sores wait one month befoer the next procedure.  Sometimes patients need to be on the anti virals a full month of 2 weeks before and after.  This really works to protect you and in my experience has been 100% effective  but I am sure there are some failures to protect so be cautions but move ahead.  My Best,  Dr C

IPL can trigger an outbreak of cold sores if the virus is active in your system. Many people are prone to cold sores and it is common for them to have an outbreak after IPL if they don't take preventative medications. I have many patients who I treat for cold sores, and so I just recommend they take a pill for a few days before and after IPL (just like you should be doing if you go to the dentist!).