Dr. Gavin Chan: How a Ray of Light Changed My Life
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Transcript of Dr. Gavin Chan: How a Ray of Light Changed My Life
Dr. Gavin Chan: How a Ray
of Light Changed My Life -
VCI – Beautiful You Expo
My name is Gavin Chan, I'm from the Victorian Cosmetic
Institute and today I’ll be talking about how a ray of light can
change your life.
Imagine taking a single wavelength of light, amplifying it and
then focusing on some skin, and imparting changes on the
skin, which make a huge, dramatic difference in the way the
skin appears. This in turn, makes a huge change to how
people perceive you and also how you feel from within and
how confident you are in your skin.
Today, I’ll be talking about that topic which is lasers. Lasers
are essentially a single wavelength of light. Lasers can make
dramatic changes to your skin and I'll put together a few
cases today illustrating this.
I first got into lasers about 10 years ago. I’ll tell you a bit about
my journey. I started off with a single laser. I bought it at a
conference, a cosmetic and laser conference run like this one
and it cost a hundred and eighty thousand dollars at that time.
The laser did virtually one thing, which was it treated blood
vessels. So it was a laser which was highly attracted to
oxyhaemoglobin which is present in the blood and what it
could do is shut down blood vessels.
Now here is the man who came to see me, and this fellow
was rather unfortunate. He only had one arm and everyone
thought he was an alcoholic because he had a red face, but
he actually didn't drink really much at all. He has a condition
called rosacea which is quite a common condition affecting a
lot of our population. The type of rosacea he had, were a lot of
broken capillaries and facial capillaries. So we treated him
with our laser that I had, my first laser and this was the result.
Afterwards, he was in here for a second treatment but you
can see there is a dramatic difference between the first and
second photos. This changed the way people perceived him.
They didn’t think he was an alcoholic anymore and they
thought he had better skin obviously.
Here's another interesting case, a young guy with a port-wine
stain. A port-wine stain is a congenital birthmark that afflicts
quite a number of people in our population, especially on the
face.
Now this poor kid, when he was young, he didn't have any
photos taken of him. Usually when you're a little kid you have
multiple photos taken of you. He showed me one photo. I
asked him to show me a photo of when he was young, I
wanted to see what his port-wine stain was like. He showed
me one photo of himself. I think he was angry, so his Dad
said, I'll take a photo of you if you don't stop having a temper
tantrum. He's got this photo of him throwing a temper tantrum
when he was three years old.
Anyhow we used the same laser on him the vascular laser,
the Gemini laser and that cleared a lot of his port-wine stains.
You can see a huge difference between the first and second
photos. There were multiple treatments involved in this and
we didn’t ever get it down to nothing. The nature of most port-
wine stains, is that it will actually not be able to be fully
treatable, but nonetheless this made a big difference for him.
He had a huge improvement in his confidence because his
appearance was less dramatic.
So the laser bug bit me and I went on to purchase more
lasers. Lasers are very specific in their use. One laser will be
used for blood vessels as you've seen and then another laser
may be used for pigmentation or other skin problems.
I make two analogies, one for men and one for women. For
men, I might say it’s like having lots of different lenses for your
camera and they can relate to that. For women, it’s like saying
you know, you have to have multiple pairs of shoes. You can't
just have one pair of shoes, because you can't do everything,
in runners. You have to have high heels, you have to have
runners, you have to have all sorts of shoes and just some for
everyday use. So lasers are a bit like that. Each laser does a
specific job on the skin.
Now in this case, we have a demonstration of a ruby laser.
This lady I actually met in the park, walking my dog. I watched
her walk by quite a few times then I told her what I did. Then
she said "What do you think, can you fix up this brown spot for
me?" She actually had this for twenty years and even with
makeup on, you weren’t really able to cover it up.
So we did one treatment, and within 10 minutes, this spot was
in the process of being removed. After a week, you have this
appearance. So she went on to have further treatment of
some other brown spots and some further treatment of the
remainder of that brown spot. You can see a huge difference,
and this lady no longer has to worry about putting on makeup
everyday.
Another example, an Asian patient, this lady couldn't cover up
her face even with stage makeup, she couldn't cover up these
dots. So we erased them using a pigment laser again and you
can see a dramatic difference in her skin. She could just put
on light makeup now and get away with covering all the spots.
So my laser obsession kept going on and on, I kept buying
more and more lasers, the laser bug really hit. I went and
bought some different lasers. Some lasers have different
properties. Some lasers are able to fire laser pulses at a very,
very short interval of time. So we're talking in the order of one
billionth of a second. These lasers can break down even
things like tattoo ink.
We have a patient here who has an unfortunate tattoo across
his forehead and this has stopped him from doing virtually
anything. He had no job, he couldn't go anywhere without
people making a serious judgment about him. Actually this
case came to me as a pro bono case. I was asked to do this
one at no charge and I did oblige because he couldn't afford
to do it at that time and we ended up about doing six
treatments on him and the result was this. So it virtually
disappeared.
The lasers used was a Q-Switch Nd:Yag Laser which
basically is attracted to the pigmenting. The laser is able to
break down those pigments into such small particles that the
body can them take away. Normally tattoos stay there
because they're too big for the immune system to take away.
So once they're broken down, they’re fine.
Now we move on to another laser. This is an interesting case
here of a fellow who has had this big nose. It got bigger and
bigger as time went by. He had an unfortunate situation where
his wife passed hadn't had time and things got away and he
just let it go. He said he used to go to shopping malls and little
kids used to be scared of him. He said he used to shake his
nose at them and scare them off.
He's a nice fellow actually. Again, with this sort of nose,
there's lot of association with alcoholism and other problems
and really that’s not the case here. This is a complication of
rosacea which is a skin condition. So I used another laser
called a CO2 laser or carbon dioxide laser. This laser is
attracted to the water in the skin. We were able to shave down
the nose back to this level here so he looked much more
normal than the previous picture. The CO2 has to be one of
my favorite lasers because you really can do so much with it
in terms of skin rejuvenation.
This is Margaret, one of our nurses and she's a lovely lady, I
work with her quite a lot. Every week in the operating theatre I
stand opposite her. She's a lovely lady with a heart of gold,
but people used to think she was tired or angry at them. At
times that could be true. But she's got this very interesting
expression she does with her one eyebrow where she can
look at you and raise one eyebrow and it just sees right
through you. If she wants to make you uncomfortable she can
do that.
One day, whilst I was operating opposite her I said to her,
"Look Margaret, we’ve really got to do something with your
skin". Of course she gave me the eyebrow and I was slightly
uncomfortable. I said, "We’ve got to do a laser resurfacing for
you". I planted the seed and I kept talking to her for days, and
I think months and eventually I talked her around to doing it.
So we do a carbon dioxide laser resurfacing. The carbon
dioxide laser is able to remove wrinkles by vaporizing a very
fine layer of skin as well as tightening the skin through
shrinkage. The skin basically shrinks through the thermal
energy. This is her before and after; now, what a difference
eh? You can see there are far fewer wrinkles, pigmentation is
improved also. We just basically took that top layer of old skin
off and regenerated her skin. One of the anesthetists she
works with, who had been working with her for twenty years
didn't recognize her. He said, "Oh, that's you Margaret." He
didn't recognize her after the treatment.
Here's another example of a lady who has had carbon dioxide
laser resurfacing. You can also remove little moles by
focusing on the mole and shaving it down to the level of the
skin, but certainly there's a lot of skin tightening around the
eyes and a lot of reduction in upper lip lines.
Now we have a final case here. Now, we actually have the
after shot here, she's right in front of me, so would you like to
come to the stage Alana? This is Alana, give her a hand. I
thought, the best after shot ever. This was her. Alana sent me
this photo, not long after she initially contacted me by email.
She asked me, do you do laser resurfacing? I said yes. She's
from Mildura, so I said, send me some photos and this is what
she sent me. You weren't too happy about those photos.
Dr. Chan: What did you title them? You said...
Alana: Ugly.
Dr. Chan: She titled them 'ugly'. That was the folder that she
put them in. She was really worried about her skin and you've
had this since... how old were you when this first started?
Alana: It started when I was around thirty and just got worse
and worse, mainly sun damage. I've been to three plastic
surgeons, they wouldn't touch me because it was just too, too
many wrinkles.
Dr. Chan: So, in essence, a face lift or a surgical intervention
is not the ideal procedure for this sort of skin. What needs to
be done is a resurfacing of the skin. So poor Alana went
through this. She had the procedure, we put her through
sedation, so it was relatively comfortable, for the procedure.
We injected a lot of local anesthetic into her face, and now I
have to pre-warn you that these next pictures are going to be
quite graphic. This is her journey afterwards. This is before,
this is immediately after the procedure, you can see there's
little bit of bleeding, her face is very swollen from the local
anesthetic. How did that feel at that stage, was that painful?
Alana: Um, no. I had no pain. No.
Dr. Chan: And it gets worse, Day 2, you could see quite a lot
of crusting and bleeding. Now Vaseline is applied to the face
everyday, you get pretty sick of Vaseline after a while. So at
this point, how did it feel? How did your face feel at this point?
Alana: I had no pain. I just felt normal. There was nothing.
Member of the audience: Were you scared?
Dr. Chan: Were you scared?
Alana: (Shook her head)
Dr. Chan: I guess this is Day 3 and Day 5, and Day 6 and 7
and I think 8 days on, 9 days, 11 and 18 days. So we've gone
from this to this, which is quite a nice change, and here she is.
Give her a hand.
Audience: (Applause)
Dr. Chan: Well now, how do you feel after your procedure?
How do you feel within yourself?
Alana: Oh heaps better. People are noticing a difference. I
feel better about myself. Yeah, I just yeah, completely
different.
Dr. Chan: Did many people made any remarks or comments?
Alana: Yep. A lot of people say that they can see that I look
different but they can't put their finger on what it is. And they
say that I look refreshed.
Dr. Chan: So you don't look overdone, like plastic surgery.
Alana: No.
Dr. Chan: Okay, so thank you Alana for coming all the way
from Mildura to be part of this talk. I hope it’s made a nice
difference for you, in your life.
Alana: It has.
Dr. Chan: And I think, that's what really gives us a bit of a
buzz, when we have patients like Alana who are not only very
nice but who have great results. You know it gives us a bit of a
buzz that we've looked after you and helped to make a
difference in your life. Thank you.
Question time. Do you have questions?
Dr. Chan: Alana stayed in Melbourne for one week. We see
her everyday after the procedure to check on her, to make
sure there are no signs of infection, or any issues. She had an
uncomplicated course, there were no side effects or
complications with her treatment.
It does take a good one week to get over the majority of it,
and up to a month to two months to get over the redness and
the swelling. How far out are you now again? It’s about six
weeks out. So the improvements continue for six to twelve
months afterwards as the collagen remodels. From other
patients as well as Alana, I’d say the experience is not painful.
It’s slightly itchy and uncomfortable, and you look terrible, you
look really terrible, that's the main issue for people.
Pain wise is not bad, at worse it feels like a bit of sunburn but
you have to be secluded at home, you can't really go out and
do your shopping or anything. You have to get all of your
shopping and videos and everything done before, borrow your
videos and do your grocery shopping and just stay at home
for a week. So you did very well. Vaseline gets in your hair
and everything, but it’s a very good procedure. In terms of
resurfacing, this is the gold standard. So there's nothing really
that surpasses this.
The only other thing is, it’s only available for people with fairer
skin types. So people with olive skin or Asians, darker skin
types, cannot have the procedure. It's only for fairer skin
types.
Any other questions? Thank you for listening, and good to
have all of you. Yes, come visit our stand, it's around the
corner there. We’ll just do a plug there for our stand. I think we
have some offers as well so come by. Otherwise, thank you
for coming to listen to me.
Visit our general information page to
learn more about the different kinds of
lasers used in skin treatment.