FW: Skin Lightening Treatments/Hydroquinone

[Guest guest]

Here's a message from Jana that I had to rescue and send from my

address.matija

From:MyTGryphon@...

I'll do my best to answer your questions. I believe I already posted

the

ingredients of the Pevonia lightening treatments that I use in my

facial

room. As far as not going out on the sun at all......I have some

textbook

knowledge but mostly anecdotal evidence of this being the case.

When you have hyperpigmentation from sundamage it is your body's

attempt to

prevent you from damaging your dermis any further by kicking up

melanin

production. Simply stated you get a sunburn your body says wow that

was

awful - lets prevent this from happening again. It devises a shade

that

protects the underlying skin from getting damaged there again.

Unfortunately

the melanin does not always evenly disperse (a tan) and you are left

with

hyperpig as a result.

The melanin factory is always there waiting for the OK (sun exposure)

to kick

back into action. There is nothing I know of to do about the melanin

factory. The lightening treatments all work on the by-product of the

melanin

factory - the uneven leaching of melanin into keratinocytes. So in

that end

they work as long as you never have sun exposure again.

Did I literally mean you can never go out in the sun again? Not

really. If

you are totally diligent about sunblock, protective clothing avoiding

peak

hours, never ever missing a day yada yada yada then go for it. I

guess the

point is that you have to take it that seriously and use protection

like you

could never ever go in the sun again or else.

I have seen a LOT of people do the lightening treatments and not be

compliant

with UV avoidance and end up getting much darker and larger

hyperpigmentation

in Denver. These are my clients but some underwent the hydroquinone

treatments with their derm. Sometimes I see them years after the

fact and it

is just one of the " disasters " they have had trying to treat their

skin. I

am totally compliant about sunblock but my freckles get much darker

when I am

out in the sun without a clothing barrier. Maybe this is because

most of my

walking is between 5,000 and 9.000 ft elevation I really don't know.

The reason you would end up worse off than before is because the

factory is

still there waiting for the OK and then you are busy stripping away

the top

layers of your epidermis and trying to bleach away the shade your

body has

worked so hard to make for you. The factory is quite responsive so

it

responds accordingly. Since the shade is gone as well as the extra

layers of

skin that would normally be there this evokes an emergency response

IF

presented with UV exposure yielding a sturdier shade and more skin

layers to

protect to prevent that from happening again.

As far as implications for rosacea sufferers...the whole process

reeks of

triggers with the AHA's and lightening agents.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Jana