Our Sun Damage Treatment
What is Sun Damage?
When the sun emits its warm glow, your skin soaks up ultraviolet rays that damage your skin and cause sunburn. Wrinkles, dark spots, and pre-cancerous lesions (called solar keratoses) may occur from too much sun exposure. Skin cancer can also result many years after your time worshipping the sun.
How Can I Prevent Sun Damage?
Prevention is key to avoiding skin cancer. Protective clothes, such as light, long-sleeved shirts and pants, along with the use of broad-spectrum sunscreen, helps reduce UV exposure. Avoiding sunburns is extremely important.
What Are Age Spots & Hyperpigmentation?
Age spots really occur due to sun exposure, not aging. These brown spots, known as lentigos, develop due to collections of melanin, the skin’s pigment. With sun exposure, your skin produces more melanin.
Freckles are another common form of hyperpigmentation and are aggravated by frequent sun exposure. Melasma, which are patches of darkened skin that may look brown or gray, can be made worse with sun exposure.
How is Sun Damage Treated?
At Placer Dermatology, your provider may recommend topical creams and laser treatments to effectively treat age spots, hyperpigmentation, and freckles. Topical creams prescribed by your provider may contain hydroquinone, tretinoin, and cortisone. They effectively treat hyperpigmentation but take about three to six months to take effect.
Topical and laser treatments to reduce sun damage are usually permanent, especially if you commit to prevention in the future. You must always protect yourself in the sun every day to avoid undoing the work of the treatments.
Placer Dermatology specializes in the treatment of sun damage and has a multitude of products and solutions to create an effective, individualized plan for you.