http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/epidex-g...rom-hair-roots/

 

sorry, i think i did include the link earlier on but it somehow didnt appear.

 

 

I'm starting to doubt it already....I googled EpiDex and the various links say that EpiDex grows the epidermal layer ...the pits on our faces are due to a defect in the dermis. Maybe ablation by a laser and then this grafting procedure would work but.....I really have no clue. I guess what we really have to do is contact the docs doing the research and ask if they think it will be helpful in our plight.

 

I can understand your doubts. However, as you said earlier before, if they could get the graft to assimilate perfectly or close to perfectly, it will still be an answer to our problems. I remembered one incident from few years back when i had an ear piercing. I wore the piercing for many days before taking it out and the wound healed PERFECTLY, there wasnt even any indication of

scarring. Not even a single tiny dot, that goes to show the regeneration ability of humans( also i was about 16 that time so maybe because im young ).

http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/epidex-g...rom-hair-roots/

 

sorry, i think i did include the link earlier on but it somehow didnt appear.

 

 

I'm starting to doubt it already....I googled EpiDex and the various links say that EpiDex grows the epidermal layer ...the pits on our faces are due to a defect in the dermis. Maybe ablation by a laser and then this grafting procedure would work but.....I really have no clue. I guess what we really have to do is contact the docs doing the research and ask if they think it will be helpful in our plight.

 

I just contacted the Fraunhofer Institute and asked if they had utilized the EpiDex technique in the treatment of conditions other than chronic skin wounds (specifically existing burn and injury scars) and if they could please provide pictures. I am guardedly optimistic as Hopeseed is right, you could have significant non healing wounds that ultimately heal perfectly as long as the dermis is undamaged...

I'll let everyone know just as soon as I get a reply!

I just contacted the Fraunhofer Institute and asked if they had utilized the EpiDex technique in the treatment of conditions other than chronic skin wounds (specifically existing burn and injury scars) and if they could please provide pictures. I am guardedly optimistic as Hopeseed is right, you could have significant non healing wounds that ultimately heal perfectly as long as the dermis is undamaged...

 

I'll let everyone know just as soon as I get a reply!

Hey anna, i will be waiting for your reply! Hopefully, good news...

tgan3,

What type of piercing was this? The reason I ask is that I had the same experience. Mine healed PERFECTLY. I believe that the reason this occured is that is that I performed the piercing myself. When they do this at a salon they sometimes use a hollow point needle which actually takes a core of skin out, so I don't think those piercings ever heal without a scar. In my case their was no tissue lost as I used a surgical steel straight pin (non hollow) and since I grew tired of the piercing really quickly I didn't wear it for very long either.

tgan3,

What type of piercing was this? The reason I ask is that I had the same experience. Mine healed PERFECTLY. I believe that the reason this occured is that is that I performed the piercing myself. When they do this at a salon they sometimes use a hollow point needle which actually takes a core of skin out, so I don't think those piercings ever heal without a scar. In my case their was no tissue lost as I used a surgical steel straight pin (non hollow) and since I grew tired of the piercing really quickly I didn't wear it for very long either.

I pierced my earlobe with a piercing gun. Even then, i wore it for several days before taking it out, so i thought there might be a small dot or something but there is none whatsoever. My earlobe skin is perfectly scarless...

reminds me of an incident where they pierced the mrl mouse ear and they healed perfectly without any scarring...lol....

http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/epidex-g...rom-hair-roots/

 

sorry, i think i did include the link earlier on but it somehow didnt appear.

 

 

I'm starting to doubt it already....I googled EpiDex and the various links say that EpiDex grows the epidermal layer ...the pits on our faces are due to a defect in the dermis. Maybe ablation by a laser and then this grafting procedure would work but.....I really have no clue. I guess what we really have to do is contact the docs doing the research and ask if they think it will be helpful in our plight.

 

Hopeseed, here is a diabetic sore:

This one, looks like it has done much more damage to the skin tissues than acne. Though it must be noted I don't know what an average diabetic sore looks like, but I have a hunch because they don't heal as well over time compared to a person with out diabetes, then in a lot of cases they must get worse when they eventually come across infection.

At least acne wound heal up to form a scar to stop infection.

So if the average diabetic wound does more structural damage than the worst acne wound, then perhaps this would be really benficial?

My hunch is diabetic wounds go even further than the dermis and go to the fatty tissue below it. Perhaps there is a nurse or Doctor on this website that has patients with these sores?

Hey kirk, ive googled pictures of chronic wounds and im pretty sure that the level of damage( for severe ones would at least penetrate the fatty tissues, while the average ones would have at least damaged the dermis.

So the claim is that Epidex can, using stem cells from your own hair, grow out new skin to graft unto the wounds without scarring. Considering how much damage, as you mentioned earlier on chronic wounds can cause, its a very bold statement . Therefore, there may REALLY be hope if their claim is true...

http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/epidex-g...rom-hair-roots/

 

sorry, i think i did include the link earlier on but it somehow didnt appear.

 

 

I'm starting to doubt it already....I googled EpiDex and the various links say that EpiDex grows the epidermal layer ...the pits on our faces are due to a defect in the dermis. Maybe ablation by a laser and then this grafting procedure would work but.....I really have no clue. I guess what we really have to do is contact the docs doing the research and ask if they think it will be helpful in our plight.

 

 

Hopeseed, here is a diabetic sore:

 

 

This one, looks like it has done much more damage to the skin tissues than acne. Though it must be noted I don't know what an average diabetic sore looks like, but I have a hunch because they don't heal as well over time compared to a person with out diabetes, then in a lot of cases they must get worse when they eventually come across infection.

 

At least acne wound heal up to form a scar to stop infection.

 

So if the average diabetic wound does more structural damage than the worst acne wound, then perhaps this would be really benficial?

 

My hunch is diabetic wounds go even further than the dermis and go to the fatty tissue below it. Perhaps there is a nurse or Doctor on this website that has patients with these sores?

 

Well they don't really define the type or sore that they are grafting to. Maybe they are talking about minor sores that don't penetrate deep down. I don't know if diabetic sores pit like acne scars do. I do feel that this may be beneficial anyway if it only deals with the epidermis because if you think about it you could trade a years worth of pink redness from co2 for 72 days of graft assimilation.

[Well they don't really define the type or sore that they are grafting to. Maybe they are talking about minor sores that don't penetrate deep down. I don't know if diabetic sores pit like acne scars do. I do feel that this may be beneficial anyway if it only deals with the epidermis because if you think about it you could trade a years worth of pink redness from co2 for 72 days of graft assimilation.

hey hopeseed, you sound negative. I dont agree with you on this. If this had made medical news on the internet, i wont believe it is just used to graft chronic wounds that has only damaged the epidermis. If that is so, how would they answer people with moderate to severe chronic wounds ? I believe that they would give treatment, like keeping the wound moist and other healing factors to promote healing for minor ones, while for more severe ones they would graft.

More on Epidex, with regards to the type of wound used in trials

This article was created on August the 30th 2005:

http://www.stuttgart2005.org/documents/pos...ter%2021-40.pdf

P 25

Treatment of chronic wounds

with EpiDex an alternative to

mesh graft transplantation

Anyway the article above mentions venous leg ulcers

Here is a venous leg ulcer, though our eyes and perception could be playing tricks, I think we can say that this would scar more lumpy fibrous tissue than any acne scar, and that it goes deeper into the skin.

'within the first three weeks. In some cases, we even achieved an almost complete healing of the ulcers'

Perhaps the above quote shows that the recent articles we have read are forward thinking hype?

However regarding the venous ulcer photo I don't see any acne scar that would be as fibrous coming from that, so on the other hand perhaps what could be 'an almost complete healing of the ulcers' on people with diabetes, could have a much better outlook of 'complete healing in most people with small scars'on people without diabetes and who have smaller wounds?

I'm still waiting for a reply from the Germans. If I don't hear by Wednesday I'm going to find a more direct contact. Really, I just want to see some before and after pictures.

If they could completely heal an ulcer similar to the one in Kirk's post without scarring, I have to believe the treatment could address acne scarring. Is there any way an ulcerous wound this acute could do less damage to the dermis than an acne lesion?

Has anybody heard of Aubrey De Grey? Basically, hes at gerontologist who has proposed a way to life extension by engineered negligible senescene. Since his research is ALL about trying to prevent and reverse damage done to human cells, I figured out he would have known alot about the process of undoing scarring. I emailed him on how his research will help burn/scar victims and this is what he replied me:

This is the question and an extract of the reply:

> I was wondering whether SENS can fully reverse the damage done from

> scar/burn tissue that causes disfigurement in people. If it is truly

> capable of doing so, at what timeline do you forsee it happening?

Certainly, while this is not a *direct* goal of SENS (which is of course a panel of interventions designed to arrest and reverse the damage of*aging* ), the requisite biotechnologies for undoing scarring (mature skin tissue engineering, including especially the use of embryonic, nuclear-transfer, or induced-pluripotent stem cells ,and possibly mastery and biotechnological use of the cellular machinery that underlies the regenerative capacities ofthe tissues of various amphibians and some genetically-quirky mice) will be required for both. When we have the tech mastered for use in one context, it will be a cinch to apply it in the other. As to timescales: tissue engineering of skin for burn victims is alreadyin fairly advanced stages, and progress is being made all the time: here are a few links of interest:

http://www.ptei.org/interior.php?pageID=115

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb43...12/ai_n18923951

http://www.cbte.group.shef.ac.uk/research/te2.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/...ature05664.html

http://www.ukcte.org/cci.htm

By the way, some of the sites above are inaccessible as they require payment. But, there are a few others up there which I thought provided good information about scarless healing and are worth posting.

I'm still waiting for a reply from the Germans. If I don't hear by Wednesday I'm going to find a more direct contact. Really, I just want to see some before and after pictures.

 

If they could completely heal an ulcer similar to the one in Kirk's post without scarring, I have to believe the treatment could address acne scarring. Is there any way an ulcerous wound this acute could do less damage to the dermis than an acne lesion?

No way, anne. A chronic wound is, well...chronic and may haye gone without the nomral healing process for months or even sometimes years. I would have think such a wound would have substanstial damage to the dermis if it has gone on for such a long period of time without the body being able to close the wound properly.

If this had made medical news on the internet

That's the problem, a lot of misinformation reaches the internet, especially if it can be used to push or sell a product. Unless they define what kind of wounds specifically I'm going to be very skeptical. Also ulcers and acne scars are VERY different. The only similarity is that they are wounds. But even different kinds of wounds can heal differently. An ulcer might look gross and more severe than an acne lesion but that doesn't mean it can heal better! I really don't know though.

I have some crazy theory that when an acne scar is formed, the defined "perimeter" of your skin changes. Does that make sense? It's like even if you could disolve the scar tissue it still wouldn't be resolved because somehow the perimeter of your skin has changed.

Is there any way an ulcerous wound this acute could do less damage to the dermis than an acne lesion?

I think it's quite possible there could be a huge difference. The face scars a lot different than areas where diabetic ulcers occur.

Is there any way an ulcerous wound this acute could do less damage to the dermis than an acne lesion?

I think it is important to note the location of the wounding. The likelihood and/or extent of scarring associated with a wound may involve the location of the damage as well as the severity of the wound itself.

Just because this lesion may heal without scarring on the buttocks, this does not ensure that the same lesion occurring on the face would not leave scarring.

Personally, I have had pimples on other parts of my body that never left any scars, while on my face the same type or even milder pimples would leave scars. So, I think that the location of the wound is as much of a factor as is the type of wound and the severity of the wound.

If this had made medical news on the internet

 

That's the problem, a lot of misinformation reaches the internet, especially if it can be used to push or sell a product. Unless they define what kind of wounds specifically I'm going to be very skeptical. Also ulcers and acne scars are VERY different. The only similarity is that they are wounds. But even different kinds of wounds can heal differently. An ulcer might look gross and more severe than an acne lesion but that doesn't mean it can heal better! I really don't know though.

 

 

I have some crazy theory that when an acne scar is formed, the defined "perimeter" of your skin changes. Does that make sense? It's like even if you could disolve the scar tissue it still wouldn't be resolved because somehow the perimeter of your skin has changed.

 

Is there any way an ulcerous wound this acute could do less damage to the dermis than an acne lesion?

 

 

I think it's quite possible there could be a huge difference. The face scars a lot different than areas where diabetic ulcers occur.

 

?????? A pressure ulcer and acne cyst are different, but both are infections of the skin usually healing by "primary" or "secondary intention" aka scarring.

The aim with pressure ulcers is usually to stop infection and induce granulation tissue (secondary intention) not to get scarless healing ("regeneration"). This is because pressure ulcers are usually large, painful, infected wounds, on bedridden patients.

Pressure ulcers are very problematic. And from a doctors perspective, healing the ulcer (even with total scarring) would be a positive outcome. Otherwise patients start getting amputations and sepsis.

That being said, the movement in medicine and wound healing is towards regeneration. Regeneration is what happens when you get a paper cut. The body heals very small wounds with new tissue no scarring.

This is the principle behind Fraxel: create microscopic wounds in the skin to induce regeneration.

Regenerative medicine is now unlocking the DNA codes to induce regeneration for everything from skin to limbs.

Also they are figuring out some of the chemical (Juvista) modifiers and physical modifiers (fibrin matrix) that can help induce regeneration.

There's nothing magical happening in the body when it heals any particular kind of skin wound. The same properties apply.

Body location may play a small role, since increased blood flow to the head may speed healing, which can actually increase scarring.

But any wound that has significant disruption of the dermis will leave an unsightly scar regardless of location.

If you pop a pimple on your butt it pretty much just as likely to leave a mark as it would on your face. You are however less likely to notice it everyday and be bothered by it.

Ulcers, acne scars, stretch marks, wrinkles, traumatic wounds, etc. will all eventually be treated using the same drugs, equipment, and techniques (in different combinations) to induce regeneration.

Perhaps even one day there may be a genetic patch sold by a company. You buy it, get it injected, and you're able to regrow limbs like a salamander.

This is not as far fetched as it sounds. The genes are already present in humans, they are suppressed after birth.

But any wound that has significant disruption of the dermis will leave an unsightly scar regardless of location.

 

If you pop a pimple on your butt it pretty much just as likely to leave a mark as it would on your face. You are however less likely to notice it everyday and be bothered by it.

But by the location the disruption of the dermis can be different. Different transcription factors are expressed in different areas of the body in different amounts.

I never popped any of my acne, yet my face scarred. I had acne just as bad if not worse on my shoulders and my back but I have no scarring there.

I have read somewhere that the face is more susceptible to scarring ....i'll post the link if I run into it again.

a little off topic, but interesting none the less:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/14/rebui...tml#cnnSTCVideo

best thing to do for scars is to get "Multi-Lift Acne Scar Reconstruction" done. It is a simple procedure with no or very little downtime. The only doctor in the NY metro area that does this specialized procedure is Dr. Jeffrey Rapaport.

you can also try getting a Fraxel Laser treatment done. But make sure whichever doctor you go to ask him to show before and after pictures of actual patients.

-christine

rapaport is a salesman first and doctor second. stay away from him. your post sounds like a plant.

Totally a plant! This shouldn't be on this thread regardless...

Totally a plant! This shouldn't be on this thread regardless...

Hey anna, any news from the german institute.? Also, Ive heard Epidex was a NEW technology but ive seen articles dated 2002 talking about it. Im getting real confused right now.

Hey anna, any news from the german institute.? Also, Ive heard Epidex was a NEW technology but ive seen articles dated 2002 talking about it. Im getting real confused right now.

Nope. No response yet. I'm giving them until Wednesday before I try a more direct route...

Coming back to this juvista subject. If it could really hide surgical scars then, IF we do go for acne scar revision to cut our wide scars to leave a thin scar. Wouldnt applying juvista make the scar vitually unnoticeable?

Coming back to this juvista subject. If it could really hide surgical scars then, IF we do go for acne scar revision to cut our wide scars to leave a thin scar. Wouldnt applying juvista make the scar vitually unnoticeable?

That would be the hope! Although, just applying Juvista without knowing what each individual's natural levels of TGFB1 and TGFB3 and the ability to up or down regulate the formulation will mean variable results...

Waiting for these treatments REALLY sucks!