Get Rid of Old Acne Scars?

I have a question about Fraxel, IPL, chemical peels etc. basically any treatment that gets rid of old acne scarring. I was told by a skin care doctor that those treatments will never totally fix the problem, and that your skin has a memory, and once you have a scar you can never get rid of it. I was told you can temporarily remove the layers of skin and scaring but it will eventually come back without regular maintenance. Can you clarify this?

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6 Doctor Answers | Asked by anon

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Many options for removing acne scars

It all depends how deep you scars are. If scars are superficial you can get rid of them almost completely every time, but if you have deeper scars, you should expect significant reduction in depth and appearance. I would recommend Fraxel Restore Laser 5 to 6 treatments with skin preconditioned by specific topicals. This is very important step that we take with our acne scarring patients as this will lead to their great satisfaction with results.

Acne scars can be treated by "deep" laser treatments

Because the oil glands are deep in the skin, only the deeper treatments can "get" to them. the Fraxel and Profractional lasers both do this safely, although repeated treatments of the "worse" areas may be neccesary. For acne scar treatment tio be effective, it needs to be about 800microns deep, the level of the scar.

Scars can be improved through excisions, resurfacing, fat injections

Scars can be improved through excisions, resurfacing, fat injections. It all depends on the type of scar you want to improve. If there involves a significant difference in the level of the scar you need to improve that mostly by excision. This is more so with depressed scars. There are many ways to try to elevate the scars including very strong chemical peels in the depressed scars which will elevate the scars. Subcision is a technique that can be used to incise around the depressed... more

Philip Young, MD

6 reviews

Bellevue Facial Plastic Surgeon

Acne scars are hard to get rid of

You pose an interesting question. In my experience, treatments like the Roll CIT and DeepFX laser are best currently available, patients typically see some relapse in the scars over time. This means that after a year or so the acne scars are visible again. I think what happens is that the treatment stimulates collagen formation in the scar plumping it up, but over time if there are no further treatments, the new collagen slowly breaks down and scar is visible again. This doesn't mean the... more

Ivan Wayne, MD

13 reviews

Oklahoma City Facial Plastic Surgeon

www.oumedicine.com

Difficult to get rid of acne scarring completely

Your skin does have a memory and it is difficult to get rid of acne scars completely. To some extent the potential results depend on how superficial your acne scars are. If you have superficial scars and wanted to undertake a dramatic procedure like CO2 resurfacing then you would probably be able to eliminate or almost eliminate them completely. We do agree with your physician that the procedures you noted might not completely eliminate your acne scars. Here are a few others you may want to... more

Harold J. Kaplan, MD

4 reviews

Los Angeles Facial Plastic Surgeon

www.celibre.com

Old acne scar improvement varies

Hello, The bottom line here is that scars can be improved but no one way works well for all scars. Some treatments are temporary. Others are more permanent. It really depends upon the nature of the scars and the experience of your surgeon.