Dermabrasion - Bismarck, ND

I've had acne since I was 13, but it didn't get really bad until I was in college when I developed cystic acne. By the time I was 22, I chose to get on Accutane. I have since had microdermabrasion (12x), laser resurfacing (6x), and injectibles. I wasn't getting the results I needed so here I am waiting for my face to heal.

The first 4 days weren't fun. Cleansing my face felt like scraping thousands of tiny needles along the side of my face. The weeping was messy - I carried a washcloth with me throughout the day so I could dab the drippings from my face. Around day 5 the weeping and oozing subsided and there was little build up to clean off when I washed my face. I'm happy with how quickly my skin is healing and am very excited to see the end results.

For the past 2-3 days, I've developed extremely irritated patches. One on my forehead and another on my chin. They look like hives and are itchy. Could it just be dry skin?

As of yesterday, I was given the ok to discontinue using neosporin and switch to a moisturizer. The positive of being able to switch is that I'm not sporting the neosporin-sheen. The negative is that I have to reapply moisturizer every hour. I'm using my normal sunscreen during the day and my night cream when I get home. I still plan to use neosporin while I sleep because I don't want my skin drying during the night. Also, as a follow up to my last post, the dry patches on my skin were just that. I may have gone too long without reapplying ointment causing those areas to dry out.

I wanted to share that I have very minimal scarring that is beginning to show. Compared to the depth of my scarring before dermabrasion, this is incredible! I am squeezing my cheek in the picture to help make the scarring more apparent for the camera.

I'm still very red, dry, and itchy. Trying to remain positive during this transition time.

My skin is still very red and the texture is rough - making it difficult for me to blend my makeup well. However, on a bright note, I'd say scarring is about a 50% improvement. I'm being conservative on the number as I'm not fully done healing and my doctor told me it would be about 6 mo until I see final results. My deeper scars are still very much apparent, but my more shallow scars are nearly gone. It's been a long road this far and I'm so ready to be back to normal. I do think this procedure was worth it overall (as of today anyway). :)

Since I've started wearing makeup I've been frustrated with the unevenness. I realize it has nothing to do with the texture of my skin, but the size of my pores. I've NEVER had large pores and now my entire face is covered in large pores. Is this normal? Will my face go back to having "normal" sized pores?

It's been about two months and my overall appearance is close to normal. I'm still red and blotchy in some areas, but not bad. Makeup almost completely covers the redness. If you didn't know me, you might think I have a slight sunburn underneath. As you read in a previous post, I did have a change in my pores, but after I did an at home chemical peel, my pores didn't seem nearly as pronounced. It's been a couple weeks since I did that and I've noticed that they are more apparent than right after the peel. I will continue to use the at home peel. I leave it on for about 5 minutes and wash it off.

These photos were taken before and after I had 2 rounds of fraxel, fillers, and 2 years prior to dermabrasion. The photos on the left are before and the photos on the right are after.