California certainly has a good deal of sunshine year-round, but the sun exposure during the summer months is intense and can lead to significant skin damage. In fact, exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays is the main driver of photoaging and is responsible for 90% of the visible changes in your skin.
The good news is that we have more options than ever before for skin revitalization treatments and undoing sun damage. Thanks to a great marriage between regenerative science and laser technology, for example, we can make quick work of sun damage.
So, if you're looking to hit the reset button on sun-damaged skin, you’re in excellent hands with the team here at Orange Coast Dermatology. From exciting laser technologies to regenerative therapies, let’s take a look at the many great ways we can refresh sun-damaged skin.
We already mentioned the exciting world of laser treatments for photoaging, and we want to expand on this a little further.
Generally speaking, laser treatments can be broken out into two categories — ablative and non-ablative — and we offer both.
Non-ablative laser systems use light energy to clear away surface concerns and stimulate collagen and skin cell renewal without breaking the surface of your skin. For example, we offer Lumecca® intense-pulsed light treatments that are fantastic for surface concerns like sun spots, uneven texture, and facial veins.
In the ablative category, we have laser skin resurfacing treatments that clear away old and tired skin cells to set the stage for new growth. With our Fractora® system, we use radiofrequency energy to not only clear away surface concerns, but the energy also travels deeper into your tissue to address fine lines, wrinkles, and skin laxity.
If facial veins, spider veins, and/or areas of hyperpigmentation are bothering you, we can turn to our VBeam® pulsed-dye laser technology to clear them away.
As you can see, laser treatments are fast becoming the new gold standard for most skin concerns, which explains why there were more than 6.8 million laser and skin resurfacing procedures performed in the United States in 2024 alone.
Another great way to address sun-related damage in your skin is through microneedling, which does double duty. First, we create tiny microchannels across the surface of your skin that can break up blemishes like sun spots, large pores, and facial veins.
Second, these microchannels are designed to stimulate collagen production to lift and tighten your skin from below.
Lastly, we can make your microneedling treatment even more effective by adding platelet-rich plasma to the treatment. This is a regenerative therapy that taps the platelets in your body to introduce growth factors into your skin that encourage rebuilding and repair on a cellular level.
This last approach for sun-damaged skin is tried and true — chemical peels. We can tailor your peel to your needs by using different strengths of peels. From light peels that remove surface cells to deeper peels that destroy the top layers of your skin to get to new skin below, chemical peels are still a great way to refresh tired and sun-exposed skin.
To figure out which of these innovative and effective photoaging treatments is best for your sun-damaged skin, please contact one of our offices in Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange, or Mission Viejo, California, today to schedule an appointment.
