• Acne Treatment
• Acne Laser Treatment
• Acne Faq’s
• Light Therapy for Acne Treatment
• Natural Treatment for Acne
• Scarred for Life ? not Anymore
• Adult Acne Treatments
• Surgical Options for Acne

Light Therapy for ACNE Treatment

Are traditional treatment procedures not working on your acne? No problem, go in for the light treatment procedures that are currently available at all big medical centers. A call to your family dermatologist can give you a good insight on the different light treatment procedures available.

Exposure to certain wavelengths of light has always been used for the short term treatment of acne. The recent use of visible light to treat acne which ranges anywhere from mild to moderate acne has been employed successfully and safely. These treatments are called as Deep penetrating light therapy or Phototherapy. Intense violet light with a wavelength of 405 to 420 nm, which is generated by a fluorescent lighting built for this purpose, LED’s and dichoric bulbs are also useful in treating acne. When this treatment was used two times a week, the decrease in the presence of acne lesions was a whopping 64%.

This treatment is more effective if done on a daily basis. There are free radicals which are generated by the acne when they are irradiated with light of wavelength between the given ranges. These free radicals act as penicillin to bacteria and kill the bacteria. As there is no Ultra Violet light which is employed in this procedure, the whole process is deemed very safe and secure and has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).    

This treatment has worked much better when a mixture of red visible light and violet light was used and it resulted in a reduction of the number of acne lesions by 76% for almost 80% of the patients over a span of three months. The reduction and clearance of the acne lesions exceeded the results obtained from Benzoyl Peroxide, a common chemical used to treat acne. The treatment has very few side effects and all of them are temporary.

The best part of the treatment is that unlike facial creams and other drugs, bacteria developing resistance to it is not as likely. This treatment procedure however, is still in its nascent stage i.e. it has not gained widespread popularity and is therefore much more expensive than other orthodox treatment procedures. The fact that the equipment has to be purchased only makes it more expensive.

There are other light treatment procedures where the affected area is treated with delta-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) first. These procedures however, have not been approved as they are still being tested.