Sun Spot Removal

You always were fond of the sun. From morning daybreak to the point in the day when you could see the fiery ball sink to a point on the horizon you would be outside in the sunlight if you could. You loved to bask in its warming glow. You would soak up its rays from sunrise to sunset to bronze your skin in its golden rays.

You used to use UV lights and tanning beds to keep your color during the winter months.

While you’ve been able to keep the wrinkles and sun damage to a minimum, there is something that your botox injections haven’t been able to ward off.

Sun Spots

You’ve always had a few freckles here and there but these brown spots that have been cropping up lately on your face and hands are something different altogether. You like to call them “sun spots” because it reminds you of your love affair with the big star at the center of our solar system. It sounds a lot better than age spots or liver spots.

Causes of Sun Spots

Your dermatologist, and esthetician, both of whom you frequent have explained to you that they are a harmless buildup of melanin. Present in age spots or melasma, over time, due to hormonal damage or prolonged over exposure to sunshine — especially the UVa and UVb rays — the melanocytes under your skin develop buildups of melanin. Because these dark spots form under the top layers of you’re dermis, they can be really difficult to remove. Well the doctors may call them harmless solar lentigines, but they are hurting your ability to look and feel young. You’ve got to get rid of these darn spots.

Sun Spot Removal

There are lots of options for sun spot removal but not a lot of good options. Unfortunately, effective, gentle, cost effective age spot removal can be a difficult thing to achieve with lots of semi-effective treatment options and some incredibly expensive options that aren’t that great at fading your solar lentigos

Sun Spot Treatments

Your aesthetician has proposed a few potential treatments to fade the appearance of your lentigos, such as dermabrasion, microdermabrasion, acids, chemical peels, scrubs, and some topical bleaching agents — including some with hydroquinone. The destruction of the old, spotted skin will die off and move to the surface while new, unblemished skin will regenerate from beneath your age spot and move to the surface. While the idea of bleaching your skin sounds intriguing, peeling scraping or burning your spots off sounds a bit harsh.

Your dermatologist doctor wants you to come into their office and get treatments for their removal. Some of these sound pretty promising, such as using laser surgery to break up the deposits of melanin. The idea is that the melanin once broken up will dissolve away. Unfortunately, it can take a few treatments and it’s not necessarily guaranteed. The laser treatment creates a light sunburn like effect on the face, hands or treated area of the skin.

The both tell you that regardless of the approach you choose to attempt to remove your sun spots, you should wear protective clothing when returning to the sunlight and a sunblock cream with an spf of at least 30.

Well, it’s been an eon since you went out in the middle of the day without sunscreen, but apparently the long term damage took place over the course of many years, when you were at an age that saw things through a different filter.

Of course, you could just sit back and embrace old age. Or you could layer on the makeup. You could slather on the coverup over your spot like a grandma with an acne problem.