If you are like many people, the return of summer has you thinking about how your body appears in shorts and swimsuits, and you may not be happy with how you feel or look in them. If the cause of your discontent is a red birth mark, then you may have a port wine stain. Port wine stains are a relatively common birth mark, and one in 300 babies are born with at least one. While there used to be no truly reliable way to remove these birth marks, recent advances in medical technology have led to multiple reliable port wine stain treatment methods.
Read on to learn how your port wine stain can be lightened or even removed completely, so you can feel more confident in your summer clothing and learn about a new discovery in why they occur in some babies.
New Port Wine Stain Removal Methods: More Effective Laser Treatment
If you or a parent already had a physician attempt to fade or remove your port wine stain with a laser in the past with little success, then realize that there are many types of lasers and newer ones remove port wine stains more effectively than older ones.
Older lasers that were used to remove port wine stains were called argon lasers, but today, most doctors choose to remove them with the much more effective pulsed dye lasers. If your port wine stain is slightly raised, which means it is "hypertrophic," then your doctor may choose to also treat it with an Alexandrite laser, which can remove raised port wine stains more effectively.
Along with the discovery of lasers that removes port wine stains more successfully, doctors have also discovered that the use of modern diagnostic imaging to determine the size of the capillaries that make up the port wine stain aids them in removing the birthmarks successfully.
Before treating the port wine stains with the laser, a doctor will use either Doppler tomography or another non-invasive modern imaging instrument to determine the diameter of the port wine stain capillaries and the depth of the stain. Then, they will adjust the laser settings carefully, including the wavelength and pulse setting, to give it the best chance at treating the stain successfully.
While one laser treatment can fade a port wine stain somewhat, it often takes a few sessions to remove it completely.
New Discovery in Why Port Wine Stains Occur in Some Babies
If you ever wondered why you had a port wine stain birthmark, then you may have asked your parents or even your doctor why it developed and just heard that they weren't sure. That is because the cause of port wine stain birthmarks was a mystery for quite a long time. Recently, it was discovered that port wine stains occur when a certain gene in a baby simply changes randomly some time between conception and birth. While this still leaves many questions about their development, this is good news for researchers who are seeking to find out how to prevent this gene change in the future.
If you are feeling insecure in your summer clothing due to a possible port wine stain, then ask your doctor to confirm your suspicion and consider having it lightened or even removed completely with today's new laser technology.
Share3 June 2017
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