Page 63 - Chapter 3 - Laser/IPL Hair Removal

Chapter 3 – Fundamentals of Laser/IPL Hair Removal 2nd Edition
delivering any light energy, any subsequent heating will induce a lower peak temperature, thereby minimising the pain felt.
Post-treatment
Figure 26 - A 'KoolPak' ice pack - very useful for cooling the skin before and after laser/IPL treatments
We covered this topic in one of our blog posts. We cannot stress highly enough the importance of pre- cooling. Not only does it reduce the pain during treatments, but it will also reduce the likelihood of unwanted tissue damage in that region of the skin.
The main purpose of many light-based therapies is to induce some sort of change in the target using light and heat. Pre-cooling will help to reduce pain and tissue damage in the upper portion of the skin through direct cooling of the epidermis. But, the intended heating of the target tissues will also result in some unwanted heat energy in the skin. This must also be addressed properly.
Post-treatment cooling is also important. As the heat energy conducts throughout the dermis, some of it will reach the temperature/pain nerve endings – after the initial heating from the epidermal layer. This must also be mitigated by skin surface cooling.
Applying ice-packs (see the ‘KoolPak’ on the left) or similar will help to suck the heat energy out of the skin rapidly.
Air is a poor heat conductor, so water-based cooling should always be used to maximise the cooling effects (water conducts heat about 20 times more efficiently than air!). Applying a water-based gel to the skin surface prior to treatments is a good idea. The water in the gel will help to remove heat from the skin rapidly. This is simple thermodynamics (look up the ‘Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics’ if you’d like to learn more about this)!
See Section 3.3 for more on this subject.
________________________________________________________________________ 63 Chapter 3, Ed. 2.0 Laser/IPL Hair Removal
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