Though various treatments have been put forth to treat facial veins, Intense Pulsed Light treatment, or IPL treatment, is largely regarded as the most effective solution. Facial veins are also referred to as telangiectasias. Facial veins are essentially blood vessels that have assumed a dilated appearance. Reasons for facial veins vary and most of them have vascular abnormality at their core. This means that due to disturbances in the flow of blood through blood vessels, some blood vessels are exposed to increased pressure. The excessive pressure causes the blood vessels to dilate abnormally.
How IPL Works
Intense Pulsed light treatment was earlier called ‘Intense Pulse Light’ treatment. This treatment is quite different from the conventional laser used in cosmetic treatments. Here, light pulses of different wavelengths are used instead of laser beams. The intense pulses of light have a greater penetration than laser. Further, their penetration levels can be easily controlled by the attending specialist.
The light pulses are projected through a handheld device that is very easy-to-maneuver and allows the IPL specialist to target defined areas on the face. This is particularly useful for treating facial veins since the dilated blood vessels usually occur in the form of small clusters, concentrated in some parts of the face. Such veins are often found around the eyelids, nose, cheeks and forehead.
Intense Pulsed Light therapy treats facial veins in three main ways:
Intense Heating and Softening of Dilated Veins
The core concept of IPL treatment is using the heat generated by the light pulses. The intense heat is able to penetrate the skin and act upon the walls of the dilated vessels. The IPL specialist ensures that sufficient heat is generated to melt or soften the walls of dilated vessels without inducing sudden bursting or rupturing of the blood vessels.
The heat induced by IPL is readily absorbed by certain pigments in the blood like hemoglobin. This induces an abrasion-like action along the inner lining of the dilated blood vessels. The sustained heating causes restricted damage to the blood vessels and hence, the vessels are gradually shrunk but not damaged. The desired result is achieved as the walls of blood vessels slowly soften and are gradually pushed inwards, i.e. towards the underlying layers of the skin.
Skin Rejuvenation
The internal heating stimulates the formation of collagen—one of facial skin’s most integral protein that dictates the skin’s ability to rejuvenate itself. This is why IPL treatment is also popular as an anti-aging treatment. Due to these rejuvenation effects, IPL treatment is also called Photorejuvenation Therapy.
Intense heating ensures that the healing of the surrounding tissues is fastened, and skin that had been extended abnormally due to the dilated blood vessels is replaced with rejuvenated, fully-healed skin.
Stretching of skin induced by renewed collagen formation helps in camouflaging the presence of facial veins. Some degree of camouflaging is necessary since it is not guaranteed that the IPL treatment will be able to completely eradicate facial veins that are too deep or present the danger of harming the surrounding layers of skin.
Neutralizing Blood Clotting
The intense heating induced by the light pulses is able to neutralize any blood clots or thrombosis deep within the blood vessels that might have caused the facial veins. Since pathology, regarding facial veins, points towards different types of vascular or blood-flow irregularities, this helps to harmonize the flow of blood.
Each IPL session lasts for just about 40 minutes, ensuring negligible discomfort to the patient. The patient might have to undertake multiple IPL sessions to comprehensively cure facial veins.
