Featured Article
April 14, 2010
Cosmetic Laser
Mark Steinhauser, M.D.Family Health Services Minnesota, P.A. is introducing laser treatment of some skin conditions at the Afton Clinic. We intend to use this machine to offer our patients cosmetic and therapeutic services. The laser that was purchased has multiple attachments to allow us to treat sun damaged skin, rosacea, age spots, wrinkles, warts, stretch marks, scars, unwanted hair, varicose veins and various other conditions.
We are currently training on this laser, but hope to be able to offer services in the Fall of 2010. Your doctor will be able to help you decide which conditions may be treatable with laser. For example, the laser can be used to get rid of unwanted areas of skin pigmentation either red or brown. However, it is important for your doctor to determine whether these areas may be cancerous before trying to treat them with laser.
Most conditions treated with laser are not covered by insurance, but treatment for these conditions, such as warts, are treated in other ways and may be covered by insurance. A check with your insurance company can be done, before treatment is administered, to determine which services are covered.
A laser is a focused narrow wave length of light that targets a specific pigment and destroys it by heating. Different wave lengths of lasers are used to treat various conditions. For example, hair follicles can be destroyed by targeting dark pigment in the hair. Cooling of the surface of the skin is used to protect the skin itself. Hair follicles can only be destroyed during their active growth phase so multiple treatments are often required to obtain substantial decrease in the number of active follicles. Similarly, small varicose veins can be targeted in the skin for destruction by laser. This works well in conjunction with sclerotherapy that is already offered at some of our offices. Veins larger than 3 mm. across are too large to be treated by this method.
If we discover there is a high demand for these services, we hope to expand this to our other clinics and explore different lasers for applications that would be able to treat nail fungus, acne and remove tattoos.
Watch for brochures and postings informing you when this new service will be offered.