Acne Scar Treatment – Acne or pimples are the enemies of adolescents and young adults. Beautiful young faces are marred by ugly spots and cause a lot of heartaches. Acne are more common today than they ever were before. Junk food, stress, pollution add to the severity of teenage acne.
Unfortunately, the scar appears early and can affect 95% of patients on the severity of acne and treatment of acne is not treated in time. Acne scars can be challenging to treat and always need professional help if you want to see real improvement. Unfortunately, products that sold in the market are not strong enough to improve everything except discolouration.
However, some procedures can improve the appearance and texture of your skin. Your choice depends on the type of scar that you have. Most people have more than one kind of scar on their skin, so you might need several different treatments to get the best results. Here are the different types of acne scars and recommended treatments.
This article Ambrosia Clinic provides information about acne to understand the root cause of acne, various types of acne scars, and treatment. It is essential to optimize the management of acne scars. Because there is no ideal procedure, often, different techniques are used in combination to achieve the best results.
Acne and Acne Scars Introduction:
Acne is a chronic inflammatory skin disease caused by an outbreak of skin lesions, commonly referred to as pimples. Acne usually appears on the neck, back, face, shoulders, and chest. It is the most common skin problem of teenagers. Severe acne can cause permanent damage and scars.
Acne happens when oil glands of the skin create too much sebum, an oily substance that leads to clogged pores. It can also form due to the rapid production of P. acnes bacteria.
Acne is inflamed spots caused skin pores clogged with excess oil, dead skin cells, bacteria, and ruptured follicular walls. When pressure increases inside acne due to overfilling of pus, a breakthrough happens in the pore wall. Pus enters the surrounding tissue and causes deeper lesions. The skin tries to repair this lesion by forming a scar.
What Triggers Acne?
Many things can cause acne in women or men :
- Hormones change during puberty: During puberty, in both girls and boys, there is an increase in male sex hormones called androgens. The effect of this increases, the glands that enlarge and produce more sebum.
- Hormones change as Adults: Menstrual cycle in women is one of the most common triggers of acne. Acne tends to make a few days before the start of the cycle and disappears after a period. In some women, other hormonal changes, such as pregnancy and menopause, can improve acne. But some women have severe acne during this time. Sudden stopping the use of birth control pills also plays a role.
- Medications: Some drugs such as those used for the treatment of epilepsy and depression types.
- Makeup– many kinds of makeup can cause a flare in acne.
- Pressure or rubbing on the skin and friction caused by a bike helmet or backpack can make acne worse.
- Family History: If other people in your family have acne, there is a higher chance of getting it.
- Dandruff: there is a correlation between dandruff and acne. For control of acne, dandruff control is essential.
Different Types of Acne Scars:
Acne scars fall into two main categories: those caused by tissue loss (atrophic scars) and those caused by excess tissue (hypertrophic scars). There are four main types of acne scars in this category:
- Icepick Scars:
The best way to describe icepick is like a little depression on your skin; they almost look like someone took a small needle and pierce your skin. Ice scars form when your skin loses collagen, causing the skin to collapse and leave a hole. They are usually narrow but deep and are often the result of cystic pimples, which are very deep, painful zits that you get from the hormones imbalance on jaw, chin, and cheeks.
The popular way to treat this is through Dot chemical peels that cause the skin to heal and close openings. However, chemical peel procedures should carefully performed because they can make some scars worse. Icepick scars may be difficult to treat, but you can manage them using the same laser and surface treatment methods.
- Rolling Scars:
Imagine rolling meadows – that’s how your skin would look if you have rolling scars. If your skin is rolling or wave-like a scar, you may have rolling acne scars. They tend to be shallow. So if you need to stretch the skin surface, it might be challenging to say that they are there. They are almost always the result of deep inflammatory acne cysts filled with pus, which were not treated in time. Since acne goes deep into the fat layer under the skin, there is often hollowness of cheeks along with scarring. Unfortunately, this type of scar can become more apparent and worse with age because your skin loses its natural firmness and elasticity.
Laser, subcision and filler treatments are common ways to treat rolling scars.
- Boxcar Scars:
With inflammatory acne (papules and red pustules, inflamed, irritated), box scars are an unfortunate general consequence. They are usually flat but have sharper edges. The Boxcar scar almost looks like someone pushed a nail right into your skin.
Microneedle RF treats this type of scar.
- Keloid Acne Scars :
Keloid scars are different from all other scars. In others, there is a depression or hole in the skin, but keloid scars are excessively pink elevated scars. These forms when the body tries to heal after acne, but your body inadvertently produces too much scar.
To treat them, the first way to attack keloids is usually a cortisone injection, but this is not a guaranteed way to make it smaller. Topical and retinol laser treatments can also be applied to keloids after they get flattened. Keloids can remove surgically, but there is a high chance of regrowth.
What Are Pigmented Acne Spots :
Pigmented acne spots can be as undesirable as acne scars. Pigmented spots happen those with darker skin types -so very common in our area. In such skin types, the smallest pimple can leave jet black spot which can stay for months if untreated. Often these spots are found in association with other types of scars, and treatment of spots is different from that of scars.
Acne Scars Treatment:
The best approach is to treat acne scars immediately after it occurs to prevent more severe scars. Contact a dermatologist for treatment.
Treatment depends on the type of scars.
The therapy at Ambrosia Clinic to treat Acne scars are:
- Microneedling RF:
RF microneedling adds radiofrequency energy elements to traditional micro-needling processes. RF energy gets released through a small needle. RF microneedling also provides radiofrequency energy deep into the dermis, further enhancing skin tightening and reducing scars. High-frequency energy warms the underlying layers and causes the skin to shrink and tighten and stimulate the production of collagen and elastin. Because radiofrequency energy is emitted very strongly, faster and more dramatic results can achieve.
How Does Microneedling RF Work?
Microneedling RF is a method used by Ambrosia Clinical dermatologists to treat various skin conditions. Microneedling (also known as collagen induction therapy) is a minimally invasive treatment that used to rejuvenate the skin for decades. Devices with fine needles create small holes in the upper layers of the skin that cause the body to produce new collagen and elastin. It may result in improving skin texture, firmness, as well as skin colour.
Microneedle RF adds RF energy elements to conventional microneedle processes. RF energy enters into the dermis through a small needle, which further improves skin tightening and reduces scars.
Microneedling increases collagen production and other healing factors and causes skin trauma. Collagen is the main protein that helps skin look younger with a hard, smooth, and supple texture. Aging causes the collagen in the skin to sink, causing wrinkles and other signs of aging. The skin can also lose collagen due to wounds such as acne scars.
- Fractional CO2 Laser :
Fractional CO2 lasers are ablative lasers that used to treat deeper scars, warts, wrinkles, and other skin defects.
Fractional CO2 Laser Resurfacing:
Fractional laser recovery CO2 removes layers of skin tissue by the fractional method to reduce age defects fine lines, wrinkles, scars, uneven colours, skin looseness, structural irregularities, matte tones and thin collagen layers on the face, neck, and chest.
Fractional CO2 Laser Resurfacing is the best treatment if you want maximum results with one treatment. If you can take time to recover (2-4 weeks), this one treatment is comparable to many other non-invasive treatments at once. It is also the best single treatment for advanced skin damage, scars, and wrinkles.
How Does Fractional CO2 Laser Resurfacing Work?
Fractional CO2 Laser Resurfacing the latest version uses concise pulsed light energy called Ultra-Pulse or continuous light rays. These rays are delivered in a scanning pattern to remove thin skin layers with minimal heat damage. This type of laser treatment aims to remove the entire top layer of skin in the area where you have scars. It takes 10-15 days for the ablative laser colour to begin to fade. Recovery can take up to four weeks.
You can consider the fractional CO2 laser if you are looking for permanent, natural-looking results to rejuvenate your face, improve your appearance, and eliminate the signs of scars. It can be a way to create new collagen and increase skin elasticity and firmness while keeping the skin distributed evenly.
- Chemical Peeling :
Chemical peels are acidic solutions applied to the affected skin area. By penetrating the skin, the solution destroys dead skin, relaxes pores, and allows new skin to regenerate. Pimples and scars disappear. There are three main types of peels:
- Superficial Peels: This is a mild peel that can use to apply to all skin types.
- Medium Peels: Can penetrate your skin a little deeper. Medium peels is also known to cause second-degree skin burns.
- Deep Peels: They penetrate deeper into the deeper layers of the skin and are known to cause second-degree burns. Deep peeling is not suitable for people with dark skin tones because it can cause hypopigmentation. Deep peeling is only possible once.
How Do Chemical Peels Help With Acne Scars?
There is never a clean break up with acne. Even if the flare-ups are gone, there are still various scars that remind us of a less fantastic time. Although time can cure these signs, there are several expertly recognized methods for handling fast time in your schedule. They are one of the most popular methods used in the skin clinic.
Seeing the potential benefits of chemical peels on acne-prone skin include:
- Smoother texture and tone
- Lighten dark spots
- Open pores to prevent future breakouts
Chemical peels remove the top layer of skin and allow the growth of new healthy skin. “In general, chemicals can be a great way to treat and rejuvenate the skin.
Chemical peels are more effective at exfoliation than physical exfoliators. Chemical-induced peels not only kills and removes dead skin cells on the surface, but deliberate damage also stimulates the body’s natural reaction to the production of collagen, which can help to cure the scars. As a rule, chemical peels may not be suitable for very raised or depressed scars.
- Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) for Acne Scars:
Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) is an exciting new method that uses your blood to repair acne scars on your skin. You may have heard of this acne scar treatment technique because it has become more popular among celebrities. The method of injecting your blood into your face is new and shows exciting results for patients who want to improve their acne scars and rejuvenate their skin.
How PRP for Acne Scars Works:
At Ambrosia Clinic, we take the blood and isolate platelet-rich fibrin matrix (PRFM), which contains many beneficial growth factors that help heal the skin and encourage collagen regeneration and elastin regeneration. Blood is drawn from the patient’s hand and then placed in the centrifuge, which removes white and red blood cells, leaving only PRFM.
The centrifugation system converts your blood into a gel-like substance that only contains PRFM. It’s called Liquid gold because it only contains pure platelets that contain active growth factors. This platelet-rich blood injected into the acne scar area of the face. Concentrated platelets release many beneficial growth factors that enhance healing and stimulate the regrowth of collagen and elastin.
Acne scar treatment tips :
- Always go to a qualified dermatologist or plastic surgeon. Look for the right qualification -MBBS, MD Dermatology. MBBS DDVL ( diploma in dermatology) or MBBS, MS Mch ( plastic surgery). All those offering lasers and chemical peels are not qualified, dermatologists.
- Do not waste time and effort doing the self-treatment. Acne scar treatments take months – so start early.
- If there are new acne coming still, we treat new acne first. This treatment can 2 months and only after that scar treatment is begun.
- Pigmented spots can be treated simultaneously with active acne. They are treated with peels and creams.
- Acne scar treatment with microneedle MNRF requires upto 6 sittings at 3 weeks interval.
- C02 laser requires a lot more post-procedure care compared to Microneedle RF. Dark-skinned people need to vary of side effects of hyperpigmentation.
- Filler/PRP or fat and stem cell injections are done in selected cases to improve the look of scars.
- Treatments are always individualized. Not all scars are suitable for all these treatments
- Acne scar treatments improve the look of scars, but skin never becomes scarless or virgin skin so prevent the scars.
Prevention Is Better Than Cure :
Please take pimples seriously. If your acne is leaving scars -take the best possible treatment to cure acne. It’s much easier and cheaper to treat acne and prevent scars than neglecting first and then trying to treat scars. Even if you take the best treatment, you can never make skin smooth, once scarring happens.
Acne scars are less common when you have fewer breakouts. Avoid popping, picking, and squeezing to prevent skin irritation and damage to the underlying tissue that can cause scarring.
Acne scars can cause emotional stress. However, quick treatment can help prevent scars. A dermatologist will also have treatment options for treating scars. An examination by a dermatologist is the only way to get a complete and accurate diagnosis. In some cases, doctor care may be the only way to eliminate and control your acne scars completely.
Above acne scar treatment is often successful. Most people can expect their acne scar to improve in six to eight weeks. However, flare-ups are frequent and may require additional or long-term care. It is the treatment that tends to produce long-term or long-term positive results.
The first step to finding out if this treatment is right for you is to talk to a dermatologist who has experience with the above procedures. Talk to a dermatologist at Ambrosia Clinic to find out which treatment options are right for you and your budget. To learn more about acne scars, and its treatment at Ambrosia Clinic contact at +91 90149 01020 or make an appointment with one of our dermatologists.
