She said she could not help me further, so I set out to get a handle on this. I visited with over 12 dermatologist, plastic surgeons, and laser specialist and was told the same thing over and over again. I finally did find one that agreed to do the Fractional Co2 Laser treatment saying my spots could be reduced but there is no guarantee. I go in for my treatment next week. Honestly, it's extremely distressing to know you are doing something but have no idea what the outcome may be. The lack of respect for this condition is completely ignorant by the dermatology community. I'm sure they think we are all vein for stressing out about something that is not life threatening but to have a condition, in which today's modern medicine can not heal is upsetting. My self esteem and confidence are at an all time low. I have a lot of self hate and self guilt for even messing with these spots to begin with but trust me, if I was informed that this was even a possibility I wouldn't have done at all. I guess my advice from personal experience is that if you are managing right now, continue to do so. Risk versus reward is very tempting but always can come back to haunt you. Maybe one day a medical "Professional" will care enough to find a way to help all who suffer from this nasty condition.
If this Co2 treatment does not work after 2-3 attempts I will search out the use of a smooth beam laser. My lips are already destroyed so now it is all about destroying these spots that have wreaked havoc on my life.
She said she could not help me further, so I set out to get a handle on this. I visited with over 12 dermatologist, plastic surgeons, and laser specialist and was told the same thing over and over again. I finally did find one that agreed to do the Fractional Co2 Laser treatment saying my spots could be reduced but there is no guarantee. I go in for my treatment next week. Honestly, it's extremely distressing to know you are doing something but have no idea what the outcome may be. The lack of respect for this condition is completely ignorant by the dermatology community. I'm sure they think we are all vein for stressing out about something that is not life threatening but to have a condition, in which today's modern medicine can not heal is upsetting. My self esteem and confidence are at an all time low. I have a lot of self hate and self guilt for even messing with these spots to begin with but trust me, if I was informed that this was even a possibility I wouldn't have done at all. I guess my advice from personal experience is that if you are managing right now, continue to do so. Risk versus reward is very tempting but always can come back to haunt you. Maybe one day a medical "Professional" will care enough to find a way to help all who suffer from this nasty condition.
If this Co2 treatment does not work after 2-3 attempts I will search out the use of a smooth beam laser. My lips are already destroyed so now it is all about destroying these spots that have wreaked havoc on my life.
See.. the issue with co2 laser is most dermatologists don't know how to use them properly for this condition.
For example, the post you're replying to? "fractional co2 laser".... Fractional co2 laser is absolutely useless for this condition. It's the "fractional" part. Fractional means that instead of acting like something that can blast down in and remove the spot manually, it will instead just drill lots of little tiny holes, and not very deeply. Fractional co2 laser is for skin tone, wrinkles and scarring ONLY. Most dermatologists don't tell this to their patients out of either stupidity, or just wanting money. It very well could indeed make the spots fall off initially, but they will come back as soon as the skin heals because it's only causing a temporary shedding.
Also, mostly every other kind of laser can't help with this. If smoothbeam does literally get in there and destroy the sebaceous gland, then maybe it could work, but looking at review for acne, it really doesn't seem like it does what it's supposed to do. I would be very surprised if that could work.
non-fractional co2 laser however DOES have the potential to work. Most fractional co2 laser devices also have a non-fractional mode, often used for mole or wart removal.
However, many dermatologists still don't know how to use this mode for lip fordyce. I convinced an id**t of a dermatologist (i didnt know at the time) to use it on me, after begging him as a patient for over 3 months. All he did was use the co2 laser on a low power mode and burn the top layer of skin. Immediately afterwards the area treated looked just slightly white, with all the bumps still there.
If the fordyce spots are literally still there immediately after your treatment, then they will not be going away. In my case, the slight burn with the spots still showing formed into a small blister, which shed and fell off and took the fordyce spot with it. That spot was entirely smooth and healed for a total of 1 day, after which the spots began to slowly regrow over the next week and back to being bumpy. The dermatologist really didn't know what he was doing, and because of that I did not go back.
For your co2 laser treatment to have potential, immediately after treatment you will look like you've had a chunk of skin burnt out, it may even look brown. It can indeed cause scarring, and it can indeed cause cracks or dips in your lips. But it needs to go deep. Most studies have shown the co2 laser needs to hit the spot twice in one spot to get down deep enough. If you were having this procedure done then you MUST start with one or two spots in the most inconspicuous location possible (probably very corner of lips if there are some there). After that, evaluate the results, and get the dermatologist to do a bit more, and a bit more. That way if scarring does occur, it will be minor and you can stop and potentially fix it with some fractional laser.
Tretinoin cream immediately after using lactic acid to take the top layer off does work to get rid of fordyce spots temporarily. But it's not a fun treatment. Anything the slightest bit spicy to eat will hurt you, and you may even develop allergic reactions to your lips from eating foods you weren't commonly allergic to before (for me it was huge swollen lips from any tree nut, and im not even allergic to tree nuts). But it can completely obliterate the spots and give you smooth lips as it did for me (but with tons of lip balm needed for healing too). But tretinoin is really not meant to be used on mucous membranes, which is what the lips are. The more effective tretinoin is for the condition, the more potential tretinoin has to absorb systematically. It could have the potential of affecting the eyes, as the blood that flows into the lips would then flow to other places nearby as it circulates. I sometimes wonder if that's the reason I have extra floaters in my vision now, like as if it caused parts of the inside of my eye to shed. I think trust me on this that tretinoin cream isn't worth the hassle in most cases, and almost all sources say it wouldn't wise to use permanently on the lips.
Anyway... yeh. I feel you guys. This condition really sucks. I think there's a unique mental aspect. Kind of like the feeling you get when you haven't brushed your teeth, it's just a primal feeling of "ugh I really should brush my teeth they don't feel clean". I feel it's similar with my lips "ugh my lips are so dirty and need to be cleaned". It's not really a conscious thought though, it just feels like an inescapable feeling.
If someone was able to implant a portion of ICG dye into their sebaceous gland successfully, and then use a standard hair removal laser, then that has potential to work. But the trickiest part would be to get the dye where you actually want it exactly, and in enough concentration. A device could be made to facilitate this but it would need to be custom made and I know I can't do it. I guess if you had a needle that could hold a small grain of the dye, then you could press it in, and then the dye would dissolve into the oil and into the gland root too. You would then wipe off the area, leaving only the dye inside the gland. The 808nm infrared laser could then zap that dye without affecting anything else (if its turned down enough...). But I don't think this is really realistic at all. It's very realisitc for pubic fordyce spots that have hairs growing out of them, you wouldnt even need a needle you would just be dying your pubes green with the dye. But the lip fordyces dont have a hair for the dye to travel along.
I'm going to look into possibly developing a solution through electrolysis. I mean, it probably won't work, but I'm at the point where I think i'd be willing to give it a go and experiment on a spot or 2. You can bet your butt that if I do get permanent success that I will post the most detailed guide on what I did.
And in terms of other solutions that haven't been developed yet, a laser system that can exactly target the fordyce spots wouldn't be so farfetched. The main issue is there's no attention for the condition though. But theoretically it is all possible. Laser eye surgerys have very precise laser tracking. If you combined that with a state of the art co2 laser, then you could have absolute exact ablation at the exact depth needed for each spot.
*sigh* tldr; non-fractional co2 laser is still the only thing that has shown to work, and it has risks.
That's such a shame the procedure didn't work. These spots truly are a b***h.