As a person ages, there are various signs that all-too-blatantly indicate such a process. The skin, once tight, starts to sag in folds – especially around the jaw line. The hair starts turning gray or white. Not only are there deep lines on the face, but the skin can get spotty as well.
All of this is more than enough reason for a person to start looking for treatment for age spots. In order to find the treatment for age spots that is best for them, it is important for the person to be aware of how he or she got those dreaded spots in the first place.
Yes, these spots are very common amongst those who are older, but some people can also get them prematurely. No matter what the person's background, the singular most common cause of these skin spots is prolonged exposure to the sun.
How does this happen? Well, those who like to tan, or even just those who stay outside doing things without wearing an SPF, end up, over time, subjecting their skin to vast amounts of ultraviolet rays. In an effort to protect itself from these harmful rays, the skin starts producing lots of melanin, which is pigment.
As a person gets older, their skin starts losing its ability to fight off the affects of the sun, and the melanin ends up building upon itself, resulting in these spots. These spots can surface practically anywhere, but are most often found on the backs of hands, and on the cheeks and forehead. People can start preventing all of this from happening by wearing an SPF of 30 or above whenever they know that they will be going out in the sun.
When it comes to treatment for age spots, there is currently one procedure that is used more than the other ones, and that is laser treatment. These spots are an indication that not only the top most layer of the skin is damaged, but also lower skin layers. Thus, this damaged tissue needs to be repaired.
Lasers have the ability to concentrate on a very small area of the skin, but with great intensity in terms of heat. What this laser treatment for age spots thus does is eradicate the old, damaged skin tissue, leaving the new skin tissue underneath. Specifically, the dermatologist will apply a topical anesthetic, which will leave the selected area feeling numb.
The layers of the skin are very much like the layers of an onion in that they have the ability, through various medical techniques such as those that involve lasers, to be peeled back. No matter how old a person's skin is, these lower layers look much the same as they would if the person was much younger.
In order to prepare these new layers, once the laser has removed the damaged layers it is time for the heat to stimulate the growth of new tissue. Otherwise, the layers would not be strong enough to be uncovered and remain on their own. This is why removing the spots will be completed over several sessions.
