Rosacea? Melasma? Acne? Building community sites around medical conditions.

Self Organized Patient Communities

Patients with medical conditions often turn to each other for support. The web allows them to build a community no matter where they're located or how uncommon the condition.

Rosacea Patient Communities

• Rosacea Support Group
• Rosacea, Yahoo Health Group
• Rosacea News (a blog about Rosacea)
  

If you read these types of community posts you'll discover that there's a lot if information, but there are very few if any physicians participation in the discussion, even anonymously.

I read any number of sites each day where physicians are disseminating information, but not in these groups. Curious.

Comments

[medspa guy]

Does anyone have any recommendations for trying to improve pigmentary conditions for darker skin types such as patients from India? I would suspect that IPL will only be helpful with Fitz I to III. Just not enough contrast to allow selective photothermolysis to do its thing. Any suggestions?

[LH]

Medspaguy,

It depends on what technology you have. If the problem is not to bad then I would go topically and use the Obagi NuDerm System. This is the type of skin it was designed for. You always have to worry about using any lasers because of PIH. I assume they are Fitz IV. You have to be concerned when using any of the Qswitched lasers. Let us know what you have for technology and then we can help.

[medspa guy]

LH-- We have IPL with integrated cooling and a variety of cutoff filters. Thanks.

[LH]

You could try some spot treatments and slowly work up on the energy levels but be careful. The IPL will show benefit if the pigmentary lesions are superficial but will not do much if they are deeper. You do run the risk of PIH though.

With that in mind, I think I would go topically first.

[ms Arlene]

FYI
One group you did not mention is www.rosaceagroup.org
We are a very large group with members from all over the world
This group arranges question and answer sessions with doctors and encourages them to post comments. We are constantly looking for doctors in different areas of the world with some knowledge as to how to treat Rosacea. Group members also try to get information about different lasers both as to effiicacy as well as technical information regarding settings and treatment protocols. Please join our discussions