By Manhattan Dermatology Specialists Upper East Side

01/14/2021 Your skin does not bounce back to its original state once you’ve stretched it out by being pregnant, gaining or losing weight rapidly, or stretching it through heavy bodybuilding. What does happen is that you’re left with stretch marks — thin red, blue or purple lines running throughout your skin.


You may see stretch marks most commonly on your belly, thighs, upper arms and lower back. They form as a result of broken blood vessels that popped as you added pressure on them from the weight gain. Blood vessels in the second layer of your skin are very sensitive. They’re made out of a form of collagen that easily reacts to sudden trauma.


After a while, the dark colors recede and you’re left with more translucent white or silver lines. Your Manhattan dermatologist can take measures to reduce their vivid appearance, but they are difficult to completely remove once they appear. Laser stretch mark removal is a technique, however, that’s proving quite successful for greatly reducing the appearance of stretch marks.


When to Seek Treatment
Stretch marks aren’t painful and they aren’t dangerous or life-threatening in any way. They can, though, put a damper on your self-esteem or keep you from wearing your new bathing suit in public. When you get tired of looking at your stretch marks or after you’ve wasted countless time and money on scam creams that don’t work, call your New York dermatologist to talk about the latest laser treatments that nearly remove the unsightly lines completely.


Laser stretch mark removal isn’t the ideal method for everyone. For example, lasers usually lighten the skin when applied, so it’s the best treatment for people with light skin. It also depends on the kinds of stretch marks you have:

• White stretch marks are the most difficult to remove because it’s nearly impossible to add pigment back into the skin after it’s lightened with the laser. And once stretch marks turn white, they’ve already gone through a healing process that means the blood vessels are repaired.
• Dark purple, red and blue stretch marks respond dramatically to laser treatment on all kinds of skin types. The stretch marks are relatively new when they’re still dark-colored, and the surge of collagen rushing to the area works well to kick-start the healing process, increasing the chance that they’ll nearly disappear.
• Textured stretch marks are rough to the touch, but they usually respond well to laser treatments. They are deeper and wider than small narrow stretch marks and have more area that needs healing.