Do You Ever See 100% Removal of Tiny 'Pox' Scars with Dermabrasion or Fraxel?

Pox scars and acne scarring can be significantly lessened but 100% removal may not be realistic. Your best bet is to pursue punch excision followed by Fractional CO2 laser resurfacing by an experienced board-certified dermatologist or plastic surgeon.

Acne scars are depressed scars where the skin is anchored to the underlying connective tissue.  Fraxel cannot release these connections nor flatten the skin to the level of the depression.  I would not waste my money on Fraxel.

Scar improvement is exactly that...improvement. Anyone promising 100% eradication is pulling your leg. Some techniques work better than others dependent upon the scar involved and technical factors. Best Regards.

With all the options available (dermabrasion, dermasanding, peels, laser treatment, percutaneous collagen induction therapy), a moderate improvement is all that is possible. In order to set expectations in a realistic order, we usually refer to a "less then 50%" improvement. Although this is by no means a scientifically measured number, it puts your expectations in the realistic "moderate at best" range.

Unfortunately I must agree with all of the other physicians on this one. 100% improvement in any kind of scarring is not possible. My experience with facial resurfacing is at best a 75% improvement in scarring but more realistically a 50% improvement. Obviously this depends on the starting point and what type of scars a patient has. In addition, sometimes facial resurfacing isn't the best option and excision or other procedures are more appropriate.

There is no treatment that capable to remove pox scars 100%. The pox scars start from the inside and no treatment will permanently remove it. Fraxel will give the best improvement, but not complete removal.

Fraxel is able to achive a softening of pox scars by "blending" the appearance into the surrounding normal skin, but due to the depth of scarring, 100% improvement is not realistic. In general, they will tend to be less noticeable.

When a patient has pitted scars, many treatments can be done to improve, but not totally remove them. These include dermabrasion, chemical peels, and lasers. The key thing for a patient to understand is that total removal resulting in perfectly smooth skin will never be achievable. Improvement is all you can hope for in this setting. The more shallow the initial problem, the better the result will be.