2nd treatment with Dr Crouch - Swindon

[scrumptious]

Thought i'd start a new thread with each treatment as the other one got quite long, hope thats ok.

Had a really interesting session today as Dr Crouch started off by using a photographic process called Spectrophotometric Intracutaneous Analysis (SIA). I'm sure it was mentioned on one of the rosacea boards recently, apparantly there are 14 in the country and the Burghley Park clinic has two. It was used mainly for checking moles but you can select 'Blood Map' and see what is going on under the skin vessel wise, which is useful as its something to refer to at the beginning of each subsequent session to see if the tx's are making an impact.

You can read more about it here and i think Dr C said he was giving feedback to www.astronclinica.com about its use with acne rosacea so hopefully it might become more widespread in its rosacea application and with any luck make the laser treatments more effective.

This time Dr C used the Yag again but moved it up to 50 joules and planned top do three passes. As it was after two my skin felt very tender in areas and after a pause we decided to leave it at that as the last thing i want to do is risk any damage such as blistering. I am very tolerant to pain so would imagine two passes at this energy would feel sufficient for many but next time if it doesn't hurt as much i think Dr C would so three passes.

I feel extremely priviledged to be being treated by Dr Crouch, am really hopeful about the future and am pathetically excited about seeing what my SIAscope reading shows next time Fingers crossed my vessels will all be waving white flags 8)

BTW: still taking the Clarithromycin and getting along with it much better now (i take a probiotic capsule alongside every pill) and really feel like its helping with the post-laser flushing.

HTH!! xx

[patrice]

Best off luck to you !
Patrice

[scrumptious]

Thanks Patrice x

[Mermaid]

That is really great news Scrumptious.

Keep us posted please because it gives us an insight into something that our IPL docs might be missing, so thank you for that.

I wish you continued success and hope that this will put a huge dent in your rosacea.

Mermaid

[Jonesy]

Scrumptious, how is your redness/flushing at this point? I may well take the plunge myself, possibly with Dr Crouch, in the not too distant future.

[prryjones]

Scrumptious,
Thanks for the detailed and informative post.
These are the kinds of posts that the forums are here for.
Best of luck to you and I'd love to hear more of this spectroscope.
Thanks for keeping us updated.
Perry Jones

[scrumptious]

Oh good i'm glad some people are pleased i'm writing things down. I used to love reading about people's laser progress and as i was receiving PMs before my first session asking for details i thought it would be easier to write it on a board - for everyone.

Anyhow Jonesy i'm holding off making any statement about the flushing simply because its only two days after my second treatment and because the worst time for me is Winter and stressed. I'm due to go back to college part time in a week and do three computer courses simultaneously so theres sure to be some stress mixed with cold air and central heating and then before we know it all the xmas activities so THAT will be the real test for me.

By then i should have 4 treatments under my belt and i will be able to say either, yes i am flushing far less if at all, or no i am still flushing. if i say anything now it would merely be conjecture and hope and i don't want people making decisions on their own treatment regime on the basis of that.

I do think the Clarithromycin is helping though, especially since i had to move over to Erythromycin for a week and my skin hated it, directly i went back on the former it calmed right down again.

HTH x

[Iotrez]

Thanks for writing about your treatment scrumptious, its really very helpful

When I had some IPLs in the past I really liked the place I had them done at because there was a car park right next door, so I could just get straight in and out of the clinic without anyone seeing my red face. 8)

Also it was in a nice quiet area.

I was wondering if there is parking next to Dr Crouch's clinic and what sort of area is it in. Not major considerations I know but I'm interested as I might be going for more treatments very soon so I need to decide where to get them done.

Thanks.

[scrumptious]

Well Iotrez i imagine it would be perfect for you then as its at the top of a residential road and there's lots of parking as across the way are a few shops.

When i go its extremely quiet but i can't tell you what it would be like on a weekday. Because its so close to a school i imagine there would be a lot of people there at school open and close but aside from that i think it would be pretty quiet.

I keep going the wrong way there though so for the second time i got caught up in Saturday Swindon traffic, it really is awful and i don't think i've driven so badly in my life But now i actually know the right way to come you miss all that traffic as in essense yr sneaking around the back. My Mum was with me on Sat and said on the way back, 'well least we know where the centre of hell is now'

[GJ]

I've long thought that the best pre-flushing routine is to drive with unusual briskness to your clinic. On the way, if you can engineer a few near-misses and incite a little road rage, you may find your face reddening quite delightfully.

DrC's clinic is very favourably located, in this regard. A good number of patients will have to negotiate Swindon's infamous and hilarious 'Magic Roudabout': guaranteed to render the most experienced driver red-faced with bemusement and frustration.

http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm