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Best Treatment for Box Car and Ice Pick Acne Scars?

I saw a dermatologist yesterday and she classified my acne scars as "minor, box car, and ice pick." I am wondering what the best treatment would be for these types of scarring? I am considering beginning with Microdermabrasion and also Fraxel Laser, but Fraxel may be out of my price range. Any suggestions? I am not looking for a miracle, any improvement is better than none. Thanks!

Asked 34 months ago by Caren in Brooklyn, NY

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acne scars

Fractional CO2 laser, Traditional CO2 laser, or dermabrasion would be your best choices

Thank you for your question. For ice pick and box car scarring, you will need something more aggressive than Fraxel. In your case, I would consider microdermabrasion worthless as it does nothing to remodel the dermal collagen. I would strongly consider doing fractional CO2 laser as it is the newest technology for resurfacing, with minimal downtime, that would be the best at resurfacing your type of acne scarring. In addition, you can consider the traditional CO2 laser, but there is up to 2... more

Don Mehrabi, MD

Beverly Hills Dermatologist

Treatment for Boxcar and Icepick acne scars.

For your kind of scarring, I have had success with a combination of subcision and spot application of strong chemical peel solutions such as TCA or phenol. With subcision, you would expect bruising and with the spot chemical peel application, redness or pigmentation that can last for weeks to months. Microdermabrasion would not give you significant improvement in the kinds of scars you are describing. The fractionated CO2 lasers (Fraxel repair and Deep FX) can give you significant... more