How to cope with laser damage?

[Sineadrosy]

My life has been destroyed by IPL. I had mild pinkness and got ipl for my cheeks as I thought it was the start of rosacea.

Well now I have full blown severe neurogenic rosacea and my skin is covered in melasma. I flush so easily and I'm in constant pain.

How do I cope? I am a hideous beast with no job and no life now.

[rkba_tfl]

Hi there!

Have you by chance had occasion to spend some time on Scarlet Nat's blog yet? Not sure if I can post links or not, but if so you'll find it here: http://scarletnat.blogspot.com/ If that doesn't come through you can just Google "Scarlet Nat" and should find it pretty readily. She's a longtime member of this forum, but I don't think I've seen her around in a while. I believe her user name is Nat007 or something like that. She's been battling this disease for a long time, probably 15 or 20 years now, and as I recall, her situation shares a lot of similarities with yours, particularly in that the real hell was triggered by IPL. She's seen countless doctors, tried countless medications, and has done enormous amounts of research, reading, consulting, etc. Her blog is massive and delves into many other areas outside of rosacea, but she does (or did) maintain a section on her condition, her history with it and with fighting it, and with what she's found relief (if only temporary) and what she's found useless. My apologies if you already know about her and/or have already checked out the blog. If not, I would encourage a peek because, as mentioned, from how you've been describing your condition and how she describes hers, it seems there are a lot of similarities and you may be able to derive some benefit from her wealth of knowledge and experience.

As for the damage, if you're willing, would you mind sharing some details about the treatment(s) you had? As in how long ago, number of sessions, perhaps machine and settings...things like that? I am by NO means an expert, but I did have several dozen IPL/BBL treatments over the course of some 15 years, with widely varying degrees of success, short, medium, and long term reactions and side effects (including some intensely negative reactions early on that about brought me to the brink mentally/emotionally), etc. With a little detail, perhaps I or others might be able to offer a bit of insight based on our experiences with similar treatments. Can't promise anything, but I (and I'm sure others) would love to help out if we can!

All the best.

[Brady Barrows]

Hi there!

Have you by chance had occasion to spend some time on Scarlet Nat's blog yet? Not sure if I can post links or not, but if so you'll find it here: http://scarletnat.blogspot.com/ If that doesn't come through you can just Google "Scarlet Nat" and should find it pretty readily. She's a longtime member of this forum, but I don't think I've seen her around in a while. I believe her user name is Nat007 or something like that.

Her last post was on Feb 1, 2020 [post no 7 in this thread]. You can view all her posts here.