I got this done at age 28. I was hoping for would minimize minor acne scars and improve my skin’s texture. Wow. Was I wrong. I knew there was a chance I could get ‘waffle’ tracks, but I honestly didn’t think it could be this bad. The grid marks are obvious on my face at all times. What’s worse, it seems that something about the way the treatment ‘restructured’ my face made me more prone to cystic acne.How do I know? Because the acne cysts happened, and continue to happen, in the same grid formation. Before treatment, my scars were probably only really noticeable to me. Now I have deep, see-from-ten-feet-or-further acne scars in a geometric grid. I am in desperate need of someone to help ‘fix’ the disaster my face has become, but honestly, I’m afraid that the same thing will happen again.That I’ll go somewhere that has untrained staff (no professional designation other than, apparently, they took some kind of ‘course’ in how to run the machine), who will push too deeply/ with too high of power and make my situation worse. I am a few years out from the process and my skin now wrinkles/ gets crepe-y along the grid lines. It’s wild.
Updated on 11 Jul 2023:
Not much to say. It still looks terrible, and I still regret my decision to move forward with this procedure every time I look in the mirror. I'm trying to improve the waffle grid slowly using topical tretinoin and azelaic acid, which I have been using for about a year now. There have been very modest improvements to some of the waffle-grid scaring so far. My hope is that diligent tretinoin and azaleic acid use along with careful sun protection will improve my face slowly over time.
I strongly recommend that you do not move forward with any treatment where the physician does not personally assess you or have any contact with you. At Lakeshore Vein and Aesthetics, I was only ever seen by the technician, who (evidently) did not know how to operate the Fractora machine safely.