Sun Damaged Skin

Without protection from the sun, just a few minutes of exposure each day over the years can cause damaging changes to your skin. Living on the Gold Coast means we are sun lovers, blessed with sunshine and fantastic whether. But this blessing can often be a curse to our skin. The outdoor lifestyle we have all grown accustom to creates freckles, age spots, spider veins on the face, rough and leathery skin, fine wrinkles, loose saggy skin, a blotchy complexion, actinic keratoses (rough, reddish patches of skin),and skin cancer. All of these can be traced to UV exposure.

Causes

“Photo-aging” is the term used to describe the type of aging caused by exposure to UV rays. The amount of photo-aging that develops depends on:

1. A person’s skin colour
2. Their history of long-term or intense sun exposure.

People with fair skin who have a history of sun exposure develop more signs of photo-aging than those with dark skin. In darker skins, the signs of photo-aging are usually limited to fine wrinkles and a mottled complexion.

Photo-aging occurs over a period of years in the Australian sun, and half of your sun damage comes from childhood years. With constant exposure to the sun, the skin loses the ability to repair itself, and the damage accumulates. Scientific studies have shown that repeated ultraviolet (UV) exposure breaks down collagen and impairs the production of new collagen. The sun also attacks our elastin; the protein structure in the skin designed to keep it firm and taught.

Envisage Clinic offers the following treatments for Sun Damaged Skins