My experience with vascular laser treatment

This is a bit random, but I thought I would share my recent experience undergoing vascular laser treatment. I’m very happy with the results and it was actually less painful and more affordable than I realized, so I thought I’d share it in case it would be useful to anyone. 🙂

I mentioned this on Instagram, but I suffered a few broken blood vessels in my face and neck during my pregnancy. A few of them were actually right in the middle of my forehead.

While I am so grateful that I was able to get pregnant, these new little spots were not my favorite side effect that stayed with me even after my son was born. So I decided to do some research and see what I could do about it.

Here is a before and after photo of my experience. Do you see the little red dots on my forehead, between my eyebrows? Those were the places that irritated me the most. I also had a few around the bridge of my nose and near my collarbone. These broken blood vessels appeared sometime around the end of my first trimester.

While I was researching solutions, I discovered that vascular laser treatment was something I could try. For me, this was available through a dermatologist’s office and a registered nurse was able to perform the treatment. No narcotics are required and it only takes a few minutes.

I won’t lie, it hurts. It feels like a needle is going into your skin (that’s not the case, it’s a laser). But it’s super quick and way less painful than any of my tattoos.

Vascular laser treatments can also work for cherry angiomas (cherry moles). I have a lot of them, so during the same appointment I also removed a few of the most prominent ones.

Here’s another before photo where you can see the largest cherry blossom I had treated (on the side of my face, between my eyebrow and hairline).

This is probably obvious, but except for the first photo in this post, all of these photos are unedited and I have no makeup on. You can see that I also have melasma, which had darkened during my pregnancy.

This is what my skin looked like immediately after the laser treatment. All the red spots are areas where I had a broken blood vessel or cherry spots treated.

And this is what it looked like the next day. The treated areas darken first and the cherry spots turn almost black and then fall off within a week or two.

I already wear sunscreen every day (I have very fair skin and burn easily), but I was warned by the nurse to be extra careful for the next few weeks after treatment and always wear sunscreen and hats as the sensitive skin scars/ can cause discoloration more easily from the sun while it was healing.

And this is what my skin looked like two weeks after the treatment. As you can see, the large cherry birthmark on the side of my face is still somewhat visible. After my first treatment, they already scheduled a follow-up appointment four weeks later to see if any of the areas needed a second treatment, and it looks like this is one area that probably will. But pretty much everything else was fine after just one treatment, especially the broken blood vessels in the center of my forehead.

I went to Ozarks Dematology Specialists (in Springfield, Missouri) for this vascular laser treatment. It only took about 15 minutes and cost $150. Price depends on how many spots/how much time you need.

And it will probably vary depending on where you live. But I just wanted to share what it was for me, for reference. This was not something my insurance would cover because it was cosmetic in nature and did not require going to the dermatologist to be checked for skin cancer (which is also very important to do).

Thank you for letting me share this very random experience with all of you. I love skin care stuff. I’m constantly trying new moisturizers, masks, facials, and other things. I also enjoy trying out new makeup. I consider it all super fun and for me self-care. xo. Emma