Dealing with sunspots
Sunspots, small dark spots on the skin, that when they appear, can often cause a person to worry or at least wonder about them. Are they a reason for concern? Is it inevitable that we get them?
Diane Macdonald, who has owned and operated Youthful You Medaesthetics in Charlottetown, P.E.I. since 2012, knows all about skin care. Youthful You Medaesthetics offers a variety of medical aesthetic solutions for common concerns both medical and aesthetic when there are no other options for alternative treatments.
Through her business, she treats such issues as toenail fungus and acne to purely aesthetic services to improve and correct things that simply bother people such as unwanted hair, unwanted superficial veins, skin quality, tone, texture, laxity, scars, and benign growths to weight gain and muscle tone and beyond.
“It’s a fluctuating menu of services that will continue to grow over time as it has the past 12 years,” said Macdonald.
The first thing about sunspots, says Macdonald, is that it is often confused with other similar looking brown spots including freckles, seborrheic keratosis, noncancerous skin growths, or melasma, brown to gray-brown patches on the face.
Sunspots are larger than freckles, have no texture unlike keratosis and are more superficial than melasma.
WHERE DO SUNSPOTS COME FROM?
Sunspots, also called liver spots, age spots or solar lentigines, are more common in older adults but can occur in young people as well, says Macdonald.
They come from a lot of exposure to sun, specifically UV
radiation, either cumulative over time or intensive sun over a short period of time. They are our body’s way of trying to protect us from the sun, she explains.
These sunspots form because of overactive pigment (melanin) within skin cells. The melanin becomes concentrated with over exposure or continued exposure to sun’s UV radiation without sunscreen or poor-quality sunscreen.
“Sunspots are not harmful to our skin,” said Macdonald.
AVOIDING SUNSPOTS
Sunspots are not inevitable but are more common in light skinned population especially if people are getting sun exposure without protection.
Diane Macdonald of Youthful You Medaesthetics in Charlottetown, P.E.I. says with treatments, sunspots will go away. It’s also OK to not treat sunspots, as long as you monitor them for any changes. FILE
They can also develop following sunburns or tanning bed use, says Macdonald.
To prevent them from forming, Macdonald offers the following advice:
- Use caution during the hottest part of the day - between 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
- Wear good quality mineral sunscreen as all sunscreens are not created equal and mineral provides better protection.
- Reapply sunscreen every 90 minutes
- Cover up as best as you possibly can with hats and UV protective clothing
HOW DO YOU GET RID OF SUNSPOTS?
Macdonald says there are different options available for treating or removing sunspots.
AT HOME TRY
- Use daily sunscreen on exposed skin,
- Apply vitamin C, vitamin E supplements, apple cider vinegar, green tea, lemon juice, or milk to lighten the sunspots.
- Try topical creams such as Retin-a, Hydroquinone cream or and arbutin cream. These will fade sunspots, but not completely remove them.
PROFESSIONAL OPTIONS INCLUDE
- Skin resurfacing with a variety of different types of lasers - IPL (intense pulsed light) - Cryotherapy - the use of extreme cold to freeze and remove abnormal tissue - Chemical peels - Microdermabrasion – an abrasive instrument used to gently sand your skin, removing the thicker, uneven outer layer
- Microneedling - thin needles to make tiny holes in the top layer of your skin. The damage helps stimulate your skin’s healing process, so it produces more collagen and elastin
CHOOSING A TREATMENT
In her office, Macdonald has a variety of methods of treatment. What she uses depends on the severity of the sunspots, and the client’s comfort level, but most often it is a combination of several treatments.
Through treatment, these sunspots can be completely removed, says Macdonald. You can, however, do nothing about them and still be fine, as long as you continue to monitor them.
ARE SUNSPOTS A CONCERN?
If sunspots change in size, colour, shape or especially if the develop irregular edges or bleeding, then they should be assessed by a medical professional such as a doctor or a nurse practitioner, as any skin cell has the ability to change and evolve into an abnormal cell and become cancerous.
“No matter how you decide to deal with your sunspots, remember, dedicated sunscreen wearing is key as prevention for future development of new sunspots,” said Macdonald.