You always hear ultra violet light is bad for your skin, but a new phototherapy using UV light is being used to the Doctors’ advantage – clearing up some of the most painful and embarrassing skin diseases.
Amanda Millward used to endure painful shots every six weeks for a disease called Morphea, a condition that left her with rigid and discolored skin.
Millward says, “The shots went all the way around the edge of the Morphea. It was a tiny, little needle, but after the first five or six shots it’s very hard to take.”
Now a new kind of treatment is giving her hope. Her doctor is using a new phototherapy treatment called UVA1, which uses ultra violet light, and it’s working.
Millward says, “My Morphea has softened and the color is fading, and the color is not red, which means it’s not active currently.”
UVA1 doesn’t just work for Morphea. It also works on diseases like eczema, sclera derma, psoriasis, and dermatitis. To shed a little light on how UVA1 works, dermatologist Heidi Jacobe says think of light as a spectrum.
Jacobe says, “We are taking out one color out of the rainbow and then really taking that and making it very, very intense, and we are actually able to penetrate deeper into the skin than we previously were with other treatments.”
UVA1 shines a narrow band of ultra violet light onto the infected skin for 12 to 24 minutes.
Jacobe says, “It changes around the immune environment in the skin and in many diseases, makes it go back to normal, producing improvement in the disease.”
The heat from UVA1 may cause some redness or itchiness, but it will fade and you may also get a little tan, but you won’t burn.
Jacob says, ” UVA1 light behaves more like visible light, which is the one that we see coming out of light bulbs and we know light bulbs don’t burn you.”
But, UVA1 may not be for everybody. Jacobe says, “We certainly want to know if this person has had problems with numerous skin cancers or melanoma that might make them less of a candidate for this.”
UVA1 doesn’t cure the skin disease. Studies show it can keep skin clear for up to ten months.
UVA1is currently available at many academic medical centers in the dermatology departments. Some insurance companies cover treatment. It depends on your policy and costs vary accordingly.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/health/031604_hs_skin_disease_uva1.html
