Why Did I Start Birthmarks.com? Good question, glad I asked. I wouldn't have except I was fortunate to meet a wonderful woman named Robin Carter on a stroll around Town Lake in Austin, Texas with my dog Barkley one day in 1995 (Barkley was put to sleep in October 2002 after a long happy life).
I've accepted and appreciated (for the most part - my teen years were hard) my birthmark and the additional uniqueness it has provided me (I'm really easy to describe!) though I had been involved in some of the earliest argon & ruby laser research in the mid '70s with Dr. Leon Goldman (may he rest in peace). However, Robin was in the very last stages of having her birthmark removed by pulse dye laser and I was astounded at the results. You would never know she had a birthmark.
Robin helped me become aware of the long-term health implications of living with a vascular lesion such as a port wine stain. Interestingly enough, at age 35, I had just begun seeing some of the early stage effects such as thickening and cobbling of the skin and pyogenic granulomas. Robin motivated me to begin laser treatments. The rest is history :).
In addition, as her master's project at UT Austin she created a video about port wine stains and various treatments available. She hoped to have it distributed nationally to dermatologists and hospital birthing facilities. See the Recommended Reading and Viewing page for information on how to order it. Anyway, back in October 1995 we decided to do a search together on the Web for information and found very little.
Birthmarks.com started out as my contribution to helping people with a need to gather information about this condition and possibly seek treatment. Over the years it has attracted wonderful like-minded people, and grown and changed in ways I could never have imagined. I hope it serves you and your loved ones well.
){kind=link}