Dermaroller for acne scars?

I highly doubt it based on my experience with dermaroller. That is nothing revolutinary in needles and mechanical punctures will never equal to the comprehensive coverage and damage lasers cause. If you didn't get much results from erbium, subcicion, you certainly wouldn't get it from needling. I've actually tried needling and fraxel - and the latter gave me a much better result. I suggest you keep talking to as many dermatologist as possible and also ask them about dermarolling. I would try my next round of scar improvement based on what the majority suggest.

You should look into fat grafting.... Researchers at UVA are using fat grafting to heal veterans injuries burns ect... Studies have shown the stem cells in fat provide benefits to the skin as well... It may very well be your stem cells/fibroblasts ect are lacking or unable to repair..... Therefore stimulating them to do so is not proving effective.... I would look for a doctor who specializes in this..If anyone knows one PLEASE email me. Adding stem cells/fat that hasn't been damaged seems like would help all aspects.. And may even provide protection from future skin cancer ect as it is known to form in scarred skin... Keep in mind I'm not a doctor or even a nurse and have no medical or science experience...I am looking for advice input as well But it just makes sense to me.... I've read doctors are concentrating stem cells in the fat to be reinjected...I think there is special equipment for this... Also the technique and handling of the fat is important...You can't just suck it out and inject it back in...And expect it to survive... Blood flow is important... I also read some doctors are pretreating the area with Growth Factors to insure vascular formation ect.. Preventing the need to over inject.. Resulting in better more predictable results and less downtime/swelling I would love any input or advice regarding this. The best and most experienced doctors to perform as I am considering it to repair laser damage and don't need a lot of fat.... I researched Valveta but it is new and not available in the states...My understanding is researchers have had issues with over proliferation of cells with embryonic stem cell use... I am having a hard time deciphering facts from marketing and have lost all faith in the FDA and the doctors who endorse products without disclosure to the public.. If I found something that worked I would invest too, However disclosure is imperative to the doctor patient relationship.. Any input advice regarding Marketing vs. Facts and Science, Risk vs. Reward Would be greatly and forever appreciated

You should really consider fat grafting and good old tried and true CO2 ablative... It is by far the most effective and predictable laser for severe acne scarring...And the down time is only slightly more than Fraxel... Good luck Derma rolling/needling can't hurt as even if you don't see a huge improvement. Considering the cost of purchasing one it would be worth it to increase absorption of other topicals you might use I found this study from American Academy of Dermatology 67th Annual Meeting March 6–10, 2009 P3514 Skin collagen induction and photoaging Gabriella Fabbrocini, Department of Dermatology University Federico II of Naple, Napoli, Italy; Antonella Tosti, Department of Dermatology University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; Giuseppe Monfrecola, MD, Department of Dermatology University Federico II of Naple, Napoli, Italy; Maria Pia De Padova, MD, Ospedale Privato Nigrisoli, Bologna, Italy Purpose: Skin needling is an effective method for treating acne scars. Skin needling involves puncturing the skin with a small needle to induce collagen growth. It is presumed that this process promotes removal of damaged collagen growth and induces more collagen immediately under the epidermis. Most authors consider that skin needling induces a normal wound healing developing in three phases. The inflammation phase (phase 1) causes platelets release chemotactic factors, neutrophils, and fibroblasts. During the proliferation phase (phase 2), neutrophils are replaced by monocytes that change into macrophages with migration and proliferation of fibroblasts. Keratinocytes then become mobile to cover the gap in the basement membrane, they start to proliferate, promoting collagen deposition by the fibroblasts with deposition of collagen type III at the beginning, and then it is gradually replaced by collagen type I. The aim of our study was to evaluate the efficacy of skin collagen induction therapy for the treatment of photoaging. Methods: The study was performed from September 2007 through January 2008 at the Departments of Dermatology at the University of Naples Federico II and University of Bologna. Twenty patients with different grades of photoaging were enrolled in the study (12 females, 8 males, all between 17-45 yrs of age). Before the treatment, the severity of lesions in each patient was scored by an experienced dermatologist by wrinkle severity scale (WSRS) and by global aesthetic improvement scale (GAIS). The needles used have a length of 1.5 mm and a diameter of 0.25 mm. Depending on the applied pressure, they penetrate the tissue between 0.1 and 1.3 mm and the treatment consisted in moving four times in four directions (where possible): horizontally, vertically. and diagonally right and left. As expected, after the treatment, the skin bled for a short time. The second session of treatment was conducted 8 weeks after the first one. Every follow-up the photoaging grade was evaluated by WSRS and GAIS. Results: All patients completed the study. The results achieved showed a reduction of 30% of severity WSRS and an improvement of 25% of GAIS. Conclusions: Our results suggest This is being released at the ASLMS the first week of April... An E-poster 501 COMBINING FRACTIONATED LASER RESURFACING WITH NEEDLING FOR DIFFICULT ACNE SCARS Cynthia Weinstein, Patrick Chen, Anne Kearney, Jenny Kimmins, CDC Clinics, Melbourne, Australia

I found this interesting and somewhat convincing data at pubmed.gov: BACKGROUND: Skin laxity, rhytides, and photoaging are generally treated by ablative procedures that injure or destroy the epidermis and its basement membrane, at least in the beginning, and subsequently lead to fibrosis of the papillary dermis. The ideal treatment would be to preserve the epidermis and promote normal collagen and elastin formation in the dermis. Percutaneous collagen induction takes us closer to this ideal. METHODS: The authors performed a retrospective analysis of 480 patients in South Africa and Germany with fine wrinkles, lax skin, scarring, and stretch marks treated with percutaneous collagen induction using the Medical Roll-CIT to produce tighter, smoother skin. Most patients had only one treatment, but some have had as many as four treatments. Patients were prepared with topical vitamin A and C cosmetic creams for a minimum of 4 weeks preoperatively. RESULTS: On average, patients in Germany rated their improvement between 60 and 80 percent better than before the treatment. Histologic examination was carried out in 20 patients and showed a considerable increase in collagen and elastin deposition at 6 months postoperatively. The epidermis demonstrated 40 percent thickening of stratum spinosum and normal rete ridges at 1 year postoperatively. CONCLUSIONS: Percutaneous collagen induction was started in 1997 and has proved to be a simple and fast method for safely treating wrinkles and scars. As opposed to ablative laser treatments, the epidermis remains intact and is not damaged. For this reason, the procedure can be repeated safely and is also suited to regions where laser treatments and deep peels cannot be performed. I'm planning on trying this for acne scars. I will post information regarding my experience as soon as I begin. Oh, and one more comment, I am disappointed at some of the answers posted here. They're either opinions based on expert assumptions, no real experience or evidence to back up such assumptions, or layman assumptions... Anyway, I'm just began my research and I will continue posting as my research progresses...

lola88 I love pubmed and have read everthing I can about all the above... I think derma roller ect is a good option...But also think ablative is better than fractionated at this point...The technology is new and not mastered..It's based and relies on normal immune response and transdermal elimination....They say that only 30% are candidates for this procedure but I bet more are treated with fractionated because of the profit margin... I think it causes to much thermal damage in some around the micro hole that many are unable to repair for multiple reasons.... These cases are not being reported delaying improvement of the technology and treatment protacols and selection of patients... Too little is know about the complexities of wound healing to be experimenting on such a broad spectrum of people so casually with powerful lasers so deeply... If they really knew there would be scarless healing... Marketing,Money and technology are way ahead of medicine in this regard and too many people are having late onset complications that are not reported so they can improve the treatments..... This is not what medicine is supposed to be!!! Especially non life substaining that shouldn't be experiamental in a patient setting in anyway that is marketed directly to the public as safe no downtime and no risk.... This is business and greed at doctors and patients expense so a few can line their pockets...It's a sad day for medicine and science in my opinion...

Hello, I would love to comment on skin needling or dermarolling as you call it in the US. I have a few conditions which I am treating with skin needling / collagen induction therapy. I have: 3 large and deep chicken pox scars on my forehead, mild acne scarring on my cheeks which is slightly pitted and a light purple in colour and enlarged pores. I have had only two sessions 2 months apart which consists of full face needling via a roller and the chicken pox scars are treated using a tattoo gun (minus the ink!). The most dramatic improvement has occurred with the chicken pox scars which have decreased in depth by at least half and decreased in diameter, I would guess around 30%. It seems that the tattoo gun has released the scar and it is now healing itself with new collagen. I am very happy with the result. The skin needling on the cheeks has also improved in both the pitting of the acne scars and the colour is fading too. I still have some way to go with this aspect, however like I said I have only had two sessions. I have noticed an improvement in the tone of my skin's pores however I am not sure if this is due to the needling or a fabulous skin exfoliator I have found which is 2% BHA acid. I would recommend this treatment if you have similar problems but would advise that you go to someone experienced in this type of scarring and also to be very patient. Each treatment takes 3 months to complete its healing and found that leaving 2 months between treatments to be working for me so far. I also help the surface of the skin along by alternating my needling with a medium strength Salcylic Acid peel. I am in Australia, I pay A$330 per needling treatment and A$90 per peel.

Dermarolling: I've heard cases where it actually caused more scarring. My course of needling, done by a dermatologist, did not give me any improvement and I thought it made some of my scars worse. I do have deeper ice pick, box car type of scars. Needling by a dermatologist is also not as cheap as they clam. Average needling cost for a 5-course session cost about $2000 USD in Asia where as Fraxel Erbium can be had for $100 per session or package deals are available for 4 session for $300 USD. Fraxel CO2 now cost about $300 - $500 USD here in Asia. I would suggest people who are considering needling to ask as many dermatologist in real life as possible. Do listen to the experiences of people online but do NOT base your decision on he say/she said or that ONE publication from South Africa dermarolling companies have been toting for years - consider the thousands of publications on effectiveness of various lasers and even TCA and subcision. There is no one true solution for all types of scars, but there are solutions and combination of solutions that maybe most effective for certain type of scars. I believe that needling does not help deep scarring. I also believe that an aggressive TCA session or CO2 Fraxel will give much better result than needling.

If you want real life examples of people who have successfully used dermarolling to improve scars and stretch mark visit a website called essentialdayspa.com. There is a thread there on their forum dedicated entirely to dermarolling that is almost 200 pages long and several years old: {edited}

Anecdotal evidence means nothing in the face of first hand experience. And for God sake, why would you pay a Dr. $2000 to do this when you can buy the roller for under $100 and do your own treatments? That is the point of the dermaroller - save a little money and get great results. Many people on EDS turned to this method after trying Fraxel or Thermage and being highly disappointed.

Now my experience. I started rolling in July of this year using 1.5 cm needles. I specifically wanted to shrink pores, tighten skin and remove discoloration from my face. I am very impatient and the forum users on EDS had to explain to me that real results do not begin to show until 6 or 10 months down the road. It is now October and I can say that I have had excellent results already and can not wait until December to arrive so I can see even more improvement. Results are suppose to last up to 2 years. I plan to make this a regular routine for the rest of my days or until I just get sick of rolling. I plan to roll once a month 6 months out of the year and let my skin rest for the other 6 months.

Hope this info helps anyone curious about dermarolling.

EG

Edited by Sharon: Please share third-party links by private message only. Thanks!

No pictures, and I kind of wish I had taken them. I see that my face is smoother and my pores are tighter but I don't know exactly how much because I didn't take a comparison shot. I also get comments about my skin which lets me know there has been a significant improvement too.

Frequency of use depends on the length of the needles being used. I use 1.5mm so I roll every 4-6 weeks for half the year then I let my skin rest.

i haven't really tried dermarolling because i'm scared of what might be the effect on my skin. i'm now on Metaderm scar lightening cream. so far there have been improvements and i am patiently waiting for a complete result. thank you for all the information though on dermarolling!

You should try a derma roller before laser simply because it's cheaper and it works for many people. I ordered mine at dr-roller-shop.com. It's too soon to speak about results, yet.

Hi

I would like to bring my personal experience to his topic.

I have had very serious acne in my 20's, wich left me with deep icepicks, rolling scars, boxscars and loss of fat.

I have had a great numer of treatments ;
at 28 : subcision (minor improvement on rolling scars)
at 33 : punch grafts (good improvement on icepicks) and C02 ( not any good, even made skin worse)
at 36 for 2 years : dermaroller

The dermaroller is the procedure wich made the biggest difference. All rolling scars are gone, and skin is in better health

Mind you, I had dermaroller treatments evey 2 months for 2 years, at Hammersmith hospital in the UK. So progress was slow, but still I could see visible improvement after the 3d time.

Now, even people who don't know I've had the treatments are amazed at how my skin has improved (and this is from guy buddies, so you know it has to be true for them to talk about it)

You have to know that every skin is deifferent, but in my case dermaroller has worked wonders compared to the very slim improvements from other procedures.

If you have had litle success with other procedures, I would advise you to look into it. Just remember to be patient, and if you do it yourself use a 1.5 mm DM and carefully follow instructions on disinfecting your work environment.