1st appointment with Dr Crouch

[lucy_nic87]

Yes I see Dr Crouch, however my first IPL was with another practitioner, and experience was not so pleassent.
In another post GHOST mentions the "magic eraser" effect, this is worth reading, if you have a first course of IPL you could see
good results.
However if you repeat the course you may see improvements tail off, it can become the rule of diminishing returns, I tend
just to have one annual treatment now, which does have a beneficial effect.

So do you mean too many ipls can cause them to become ineffective? Dr crouch said he usually only needs 2 or 3 treatments in the first year to bring things under control before annual treatments are enough to keep things in check. Has that been your experience? Do you use any medications in conjunction. With the treatment?

[MARPUSBEAN]

No, I do not take any medication, I believe what Dr C says is very sensible, some clinics try and sell courses of up to 10
treatments, this is too much, Dr C tailors the treatment plan to the minimum needed to get a positive result.

It is difficult to understand exactly what is happening, in my case I have being having IPL for 9 years.
I started with a course of several treatments (not Dr C), and my rosacea had been very bad, it improved a lot, but never
completely went away.

Since then I have had single treatments if I felt I was getting more flareups, or more visible vessels etc.
Does the condition become more resistant to the IPL is difficult to tell!
So my experiences seem to tally with what Dr C is telling you, of course rosacea is a condition which does change and go
through different phases over the years, but IPL does help most people who have it, but results do vary from person to
person.

[Judworth]

So do you mean too many ipls can cause them to become ineffective? Dr crouch said he usually only needs 2 or 3 treatments in the first year to bring things under control before annual treatments are enough to keep things in check. Has that been your experience? Do you use any medications in conjunction. With the treatment?

Hello Lucy,

IMO, the ipl did eventually become ineffective , although after the initial block of several treatments a once-a-year treatment kept things at bay

until 2009.

The last treatment was ineffective & they gave me a free one later, but that too had no effect & rather than put my face through further trauma I personally

decided that I had finished with the ipl route for the foreseeable future.

Hugs Judy

[y-gwair]

Has anyone found improvement with flushing from ipl? He recommended the Yag laser for that but I was a bit concerned about the 2-4 weeks increased flushing before seeing any improvement.
Whats everyone think?

I'd be interested to know the reasoning behind this?

[Ghost]

Yes I see Dr Crouch, however my first IPL was with another practitioner, and experience was not so pleassent.
In another post GHOST mentions the "magic eraser" effect, this is worth reading, if you have a first course of IPL you could see
good results.
However if you repeat the course you may see improvements tail off, it can become the rule of diminishing returns, I tend
just to have one annual treatment now, which does have a beneficial effect.

Thanks for mentioning my post Marpusbean. I was feeling like the unpopular voice in the desert. Having been through this, though, I felt I could speak objectively, candidly. A lot of people put faith into docs, Rxs and machinery, but aren't happy when someone says "been there, doesn't work ultimately."

Like Judworth I was given a "free" session at the end (is it really free if you've been paying heaps of $$ and things are staying so bad that the clinic is willing to set you up for free?). They then told me that yes, there are people on whom ipl, etc., doesn't work, or stops working. "what do they do?" I asked. They said, "The don't come back."

So there I was thinking 'I'm going to be joining a race of invisible, miserable people who will never look normal.' I can tell you it was not a good day.

[Judworth]

So there I was thinking 'I'm going to be joining a race of invisible, miserable people who will never look normal.' I can tell you it was not a good day.[/QUOTE]

I have had a few of those days Ghost!

J

[MARPUSBEAN]

For the moment it still seems to have a positive result for me, but less so than 3 or 4 years ago, and I suppose, one day, it will come to a full stop.
However you never know with rosacea, it s not a very predictable condition, which means that anything which can help is
also not very predictable.

My advice remains try IPL, if it works continue at a steady rate, and don't be afraid to stop if it no longer seems to help.

[lucy_nic87]

Thanks for mentioning my post Marpusbean. I was feeling like the unpopular voice in the desert. Having been through this, though, I felt I could speak objectively, candidly. A lot of people put faith into docs, Rxs and machinery, but aren't happy when someone says "been there, doesn't work ultimately."

Like Judworth I was given a "free" session at the end (is it really free if you've been paying heaps of $$ and things are staying so bad that the clinic is willing to set you up for free?). They then told me that yes, there are people on whom ipl, etc., doesn't work, or stops working. "what do they do?" I asked. They said, "The don't come back."

So there I was thinking 'I'm going to be joining a race of invisible, miserable people who will never look normal.' I can tell you it was not a good day.

I can imagine that must have been pretty hard to hear. It's great you've got things under control with changes to you diet and focusing on demodex. Im doing low low carbs and sugar and will continue with it but plan on starting ipl also in June. Perhaps by then I won't have all those carbs floating about causing my skin to toast. I've tried tea tree oil but my skin just can't handle it at the moment

[lucy_nic87]

So there I was thinking 'I'm going to be joining a race of invisible, miserable people who will never look normal.' I can tell you it was not a good day.

I have had a few of those days Ghost!

J[/QUOTE]

Sorry to hear that judy. Are you still having success with atenolol?

[lucy_nic87]

For the moment it still seems to have a positive result for me, but less so than 3 or 4 years ago, and I suppose, one day, it will come to a full stop.
However you never know with rosacea, it s not a very predictable condition, which means that anything which can help is
also not very predictable.

My advice remains try IPL, if it works continue at a steady rate, and don't be afraid to stop if it no longer seems to help.

Have you ever asked dr c about ipl eventually not working? I know he has rosacea too and has ipl treatments, wonder what his view is on it. Yes it is all unpredictable, I guess like everything else it is trial and error