Wrinkles, sagging skin, and a dull complexion can happen for different reasons: Chronic stress, illness, poor diet, and even genetics can all play a role. But for most people, the biggest culprit behind 90% of visible signs of aging is even more common: It’s the sun.
Sunlight is vital for good health; in fact, it’s sunlight that helps manufacture vitamin D, an essential nutrient for good health. It also acts as a natural mood booster.
But if you get too much sun exposure over the course of your lifetime, all those ultraviolet (UV) rays can damage the structure of your skin and leave it looking older and more worn.
Located in Washington, DC, our team at Metroderm DC: Medical, Laser, and Aesthetic Dermatology Center offers solutions for women and men dealing with the effects of sun exposure.
Edward H. Stolar, MD, and Todd E. Perkins, MD, are skilled in a variety of innovative, customizable treatments to restore skin health. In this post, we review some of the most popular options we offer.
In the short term, too much sun exposure can cause a sunburn. But over a long period of time, repeated exposure triggers changes inside your skin that lead to premature aging — signs like wrinkles, lines, roughness, lax skin, and hyperpigmentation (sun spots or age spots).
When UV rays penetrate your skin, they cause damage at the cellular level, which means no amount of moisturizer or other home remedies will help. Sometimes those changes alter the skin’s DNA and lead to skin cancer.
Ultraviolet radiation also weakens and breaks down collagen networks deep inside the skin. This change is a primary cause of skin laxity and wrinkles.
Unlike a sunburn, which you can see, this type of deep sun damage typically only becomes apparent years after the exposures, when it’s too late to take precautions.
Certainly, wearing sunscreen and practicing a solid skin care regimen beginning when you’re very young is the best way to prevent skin damage from the sun. But what if the damage has already occurred? Our team offers an array of solutions.
We offer several types of laser treatments that can help erase sun damage. Some laser treatments remove the upper layers of skin, while others penetrate the skin to trigger natural healing responses from within.
Our CoolPeel® laser system gives you many of the same benefits of a traditional laser treatment, but without the downtime.
Short for intense pulsed light therapy, IPL therapy uses bursts of light to reduce or eliminate sun spots and other areas of discoloration associated with sun exposure. It also helps smooth your skin so it feels softer and sexier.
We use a variety of chemical peels in different strengths to slough off damaged layers of skin. While any peel can leave your skin looking red, the aftereffects and downtime following a peel can vary, depending on the strength of the peel.
Many light peels cause only minor redness and have no downtime associated with them.
Microneedling uses a special device to create tiny microninjuries in your skin, promoting collagen development and other changes that help your skin restore itself.
We also offer a therapy that combines microneedling with radiofrequency energy for deeper penetration and more dramatic results.
Some topical preparations, including gels and creams featuring retinoid derivatives, can also help reverse the signs of sun damage.
Retinoids are a potent type of vitamin A. When used regularly, they can help your skin shed those damaged layers more rapidly, smoothing out and even delaying the appearance of fine lines, age spots, and other sun-related damage.
Many of the treatments we offer help your skin heal itself over time. That means that if you want to see smoother, clearer, firmer, sexier skin by summer, right now is the perfect time to schedule an evaluation.
To learn more about these and other treatments we offer, call 202-659-2223 or book an appointment online at Metroderm DC today.
