Today we welcome a new writer for Rosacea News – E.L. Hodge. Great to have you and we are all looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts !
How to best optimize laser and IPL treatments has long been debated. Should the rosacean deliberately engineer a flush prior to treatment? Should anti-inflammatories or anti-hypertensives be taken after treatment? Of course, many have long since reached their own (perhaps tentative) conclusions and employed diverse means to prompt pre-treatment flushing and soothe post-treatment inflammation.
Yet, if sufferers have been quick off the mark, the givers of treatment – with a few laudable exceptions – and the makers of drugs, have been characteristically slow to catch on: too complacent to investigate and too un-enterprising to experiment.
The news that a bunch of presumably bright people have decided to plough considerable resources into the development of a product comprising a topical vasodilator for pre-treatment, a topical vasoconstrictor for post-treatment, and a set of instructions on how and when to apply both, might just indicate that definitive answers to these questions are around the corner.
Control of Blood Vessel Physiology to Treat Skin Disorders
In a method for treating an affected skin region of a patient having a skin disorder, a vasodilation composition is applied to an affected skin region of a patient, the affected skin region exhibiting a skin disorder characterized by at least one abnormal blood vessel, and the affected skin region is then treated so as to non-invasively disrupt tissue architecture, e.g., by inducing ischemia, of the at least one abnormal blood vessel.
A vasoconstriction composition can then be applied to the skin region to cause vasoconstriction of the at least one blood vessel in order to promote healing.
[Full PDF]
Biochemics’ rationale for the use of the vasodilator is that it makes vessels easier to target and more susceptible to irreversible damage. The vasoconstrictor is applied to render vessel collapse and shrinkage more likely. Biochemics are collaborating with the laser manufacturer Cynosure and they have already conducted a trial of sorts.
The patent application is unusually readable and not without additional interest. For those who can’t be bothered but whose eyes lit up at the mention of vasoconstrictors, the constricting substances mentioned are: phytonin, phenyl-epinephrine, caffeine, arnica extract, cypress extract, Solomon’s seal extract, nymphaea alba flower extract, butcher’s broom extract, grapefruit oil, pomegranate and bugleweed extract.
Disclaimer: Apparently, it’s a lifetime’s work to formulate a vasoconstrictor that doesn’t cause rebound dilation, so, if you are minded to hunt any of these down, proceed with caution.
