Laser Hair Removal Cancer

Are there any side effects from Laser Hair Removal?

There are 3 main side effect concerns that people have:

1. cancer,
2. infertility.

We are happy to say that they are MYTHS.

But… The following are possible:

1. Redness & Swelling. During this process of safely damaging your hair follicles, you may experience temporary redness and swelling. This should last a few hours to a few days only.
2. Temporary Skin Color Chance. These changes in skin colour can be exacerbated by sun exposure. That’s why we highly recommend that you avoid prolonged sun exposure following your treatment.

It’s a myth that laser hair removal can cause cancer. In fact, according to the Skin Care Foundation, the procedure is sometimes used to treat certain forms of precancerous lesions.

Different lasers are used to treat sun damage and wrinkles. The lasers used in hair removal or other skin procedures have such a minimal amount of radiation. Plus, the minimal amount is only being exacted on the surface of the skin. So, they don’t pose a risk of cancer.

Laser hair removal has been safely performed in millions of people over many years now. Although rarely one might get temporary blistering or an infection or discoloration of the skin, it certainly has never been shown to cause any type of cancer. 

Lasers create a beam of highly concentrated light that penetrates into the skin where it delivers a controlled amount of therapeutic heat. This light energy is absorbed by the pigment located in the hair follicles. The laser pulses for a fraction of a second, just long enough to destroy numerous follicles at a time and leaves the surrounding skin unaffected. It does not penetrate deeply enough to cause fertility problems and there have been no reports of risks of cancer

None of the following lasers increase the chances of developing skin cancer — in fact, some of the lasers are useful in treating pre-cancerous lesions, thus reducing the risk of developing skin cancer.

Laser Can Reverse Sun Damage

Sun damage can manifest itself on the skin in a variety of ways:  brown spots (also known as sun spots, age spots or liver spots); broken blood vessels; wrinkles; and pre-cancerous rough, scaly patches (called solar or actinic keratoses).

There are wonderful laser treatments available today that help reverse sun damage and improve the appearance of mottled, rough, leathery-looking skin.

Specific lasers target particular problem areas of the skin.  For example, pigment-specific lasers (e.g., Q-switched ruby, Q-switched Nd-YAG and Q-switched alexandrite) remove brown spots.  Broken blood vessels are treated with vascular-specific lasers, such as the Pulse Dye Laser (PDL).

There are also many lasers that are highly effective for treating wrinkles.  These lasers can be ablative (i.e., they vaporize the top layer of the skin), such as the CO2or erbium laser, or nonablative (i.e., a resurfacing laser that eliminates wrinkles without any peeling of the skin).

The use of either ablative or many of the nonablative lasers increases collagen formation, which translates into an improvement in fine lines and wrinkles.