What is Psoriasis?

Psoriasis is a chronic, genetic, incurable, non-contagious skin disorder that appears in many different forms. A disease of the immune system, its causes are still largely unknown. Healthy skin grows and sheds at a steady pace that goes mostly unnoticed. This process takes about one month. With psoriasis, the immune system sends faulty signals that speed skin cell growth up 10 times faster than normal.

As the epidermis thickens with extra skin cells, blood vessels dilate with increased blood supply to nourish those cells. Dead cells pile up on the surface to create a white, flaky layer over a patch of inflamed skin.

Psoriasis, depending on its severity, is generally treated by a combination of topical, ultraviolet light and systemic therapies. The vast majority of these methods are difficult and time consuming to apply. In addition, many of the more effective treatments, for example UVA, UVB or PUVA, may carry severe potential side effects such as an increased cancer risk.

Using ultraviolet light, it is thought, damages skin cells and interrupts immune functions.

In psoriasis, the earliest observable electron-microscopic changes are seen in the papillary dermal vasculature. These vessels have been implicated as participating in the pathogenesis of the disease by facilitating the access of activated T cells to the skin and maintaining the psoriatic plaque.

Employing the principles of selective photothermolysis, LHE targets the blood-rich substructure of psoriatic lesions. With its unique light and heat technology, LHE coagulates blood vessels effectively cutting off blood supply and inhibiting the psoriatic response.

As many psoriasis patients can attest, sunlight has been known to help heal the skin and calm the inflammation. The downside of course is the danger of burn and the increased risk of skin cancer. As in UVA or UVB phototherapy, when sunlight penetrates the top layers of the skin, ultraviolet radiation bombards the genetic material inside skin cells and injures it. However, the benefits of sunlight and its naturally soothing heat on psoriatic skin cannot be ignored.

LHE’s patented technology provides the soothing effects of natural sunlight while eliminating risk of burn. The combination of visible light, precisely timed flashes of 35ms, and LHE’s unique healing photothermal effect creates a clinically proven treatment that will not burn or damage skin.