List of IPL Doctors

[pythonidler]

Hi all,

As you all probably know, it can be very difficult to find a doctor who can do IPL in your area. Dr. Toyos' Centers of Excellence is a good start, but what if there aren't any doctors on that list that live in your state?

Personally, I had a LOT of trouble trying to find ANY doctors in the Pacific Northwest who could do it. It took me about a week and a half of Internet research, calling doctor's offices, and networking before I finally found one.

So I've made what I hope will save people a lot of time in the future. I created a document in Google Sheets that lists all the known IPL doctors and their contact information. Each tab corresponds to the list of a different country. For example: the first tab is for U.S. doctors, the second is for Canadian doctors, and so on. Right now only I've edited it, so it only has U.S. doctors on the West Coast. But I'm hoping people can do their own research and contribute to it.

The spreadsheet is read-only, which means you can't make changes to it. If you'd like to add a doctor to it, post their information on this thread and I will add it to the spreadsheet. Below is an example of what it should look like:

Doctor: John Smith
Office: Eye Candy
Country: United States
Address: 123 Recovery Rd
Phone: 555-867-5309

Don't add doctors from Dr. Toyos' list unless you have personally called them to confirm they still do dry eye. I've already called one doctor on his list that doesn't do it.

Frustrated that no doctors in your area are on this list? Contribute to the list and help future dry eye patients!


Link to the spreadsheet

[pythonidler]

Some of you may want to know how to find doctors in your area that aren't listed on this spreadsheet or on Dr. Toyos' Centers of Excellence. The following describes what I did - I think most of it is common sense stuff. The methods below are listed from quickest to most time-consuming, so I would start at the top and work your way down. Keep in mind, if internet searches don't work, you may have to spend a lot of time making phone calls.

1. Google Search (a few minutes)
I googled terms like "Seattle IPL dry eye", "Seattle IPL eye", "Seattle Intense Pulsed Light dry eye", "Seattle IPL ophthalmologists", or some combination thereof. If you don't find what you're looking for on the first page or two, you probably won't find it through a simple Google search.

2. RealSelf.com Search (a few minutes)
One of my Google results led me to the site RealSelf.com. There I searched for "IPL" near Seattle, WA. These are the results I got. Since IPL was originally developed as a skin rejuvenation procedure, most of these results are dermatologists or plastic surgeons. But in my case, a couple doctors were listed as "Ophthalmologists". If they were listed as an ophthalmologist, I called their office to confirm they did IPL.

3. Contacting IPL Machine Manufacturers (1-2 hours)
Sometimes, the IPL machine manufacturers will have a list of all the doctors in your area that have an IPL machine. Problem is, probably most of these doctors are dermatologists. I would recommend contacting the following manufacturers. In my opinion, these are ordered from most likely to have an eye doctor using their machine, to least likely.

a. Lumenis
Phone: 408-764-3000
Website: http://www.lumenis.com/
What to Do: Call their main phone number and ask for sales. When transferred to sales, ask for the contact information of a sales rep in your area. Call and email the rep asking for a list of doctors who do IPL for dry eye.

b. DermaMed Solutions
Phone: 610-358-4447
Website: https://dermamedsolutions.com/
What to Do: Call their main phone number and ask for sales. Ask specifically for ophthalmologists who can do IPL in your area.

c. CynoSure
Phone: 888-523-2233
Website: http://cynosure-locator.com/patients
What to Do: You can try calling their number, but I was just told to go to their website and use the locator tool. For treatment type, I tried "Skin Revitalization" and "Skin Renewal", as that is what IPL is typically used for. You can then try to see if there are any ophthalmologists in that list.

d. Syneron-Candela
Phone: 866-259-6661
Website: http://syneron-candela.com/na/patient-information
What to Do: Again, you can try calling the number, but it will probably just lead to disappointment. I would use the search tool, which is at the bottom of the their webpage. Apparently, IPL machines are an "e" Series product. I tried both "eLight" and "eLaser" products.

4. Calls to Doctor's Offices (several hours)
This was by far the most time-consuming part of it. You will need to make a spreadsheet of your own to keep track of your progress.
First, you need to somehow get a list of all the ophthalmologist offices in your area. You can get this from a google search, Yelp, your insurance's website, or whatever.
Then once you have the information, call the doctor's offices. Try the larger offices first (e.g. major medical centers) and work your way towards the smaller offices (e.g. single doctors). As you call the offices, ask specifically if they can do IPL for dry eye. If they say they can't do IPL, ask if they know of any doctors who can do it - I found two of the three doctors in my area by asking this.


I hope this helps - it took a long time for me, but it's worth it considering I won't have to fly to California every time I need an IPL treatment.

[Hokucat]

Hi there. Thanks for all your work and sharing on IPL doctors. At one time I was considering IPL, and yes, it took me a few days to locate one in my area. And I've seen others in this forum looking for IPL doctors, so am sure your information and/or process to find one will expedite their process to find a doctor. Thanks for your help!

[deep_dry_eye]

I would just like to add, for Toronto/Canada area, here is a list of DRs you can get IPL done: http://dryeyetoronto.com/dry-eye-specialists.html