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I was told the dermaplaning is too invasive of a procedure and doctors won't do it. I searched for years for someone who could perform it to no avail. The downtime is SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER than dermabrasion. The results are comparable because a scar can only be planed down so far before further scarring is induced. It is just another resurfacing modality. I'm telling you I tried researching it and these were my own personal conclusions. I know that article is from AAD and it is a good source.
Hey hey hey. This is my 1st post on this wonderful board. I have acne scars on both my cheeks. Kinda like what leafsfan had but a bit redder.(not that red) I'd also like to thank everyone for posting their pictures.
I have read throughout this whole thread(a whole 2 hours) so i know what questions have and haven't been asked, but i have one question i'd like to ask
Since the scars are only on both cheeks, do i still have to get a full face done??? My forehead,nose,and chin are clear.
What suck's is i have to wait about another half a year before i get this done, because i don't have the money right now. It really is killing me.It hurts not to be able to do things you want,and hiding from society because you are not satisfied with your appearance.
Im nevous about the whole dermabrasion,plus being pink afterwards.
Meet Pete, I researched that procedure a few years back and came to the conclusion that it is not practiced anymore. The risk for further scarring was too severe and nobody would do it. If you can find a skilled doc then go for it, but I doubt you will. I even asked dr y about it in the past and he said wire brush dermabrasion is a better and safer option that will produce comparable results.
Healthysceptic, LOL on your remark about using it as a salad dressing. I don't think it would taste too good though. I got some in my mouth the other day and it was nasty. It really is a good product. I am liking the improvement in my skin tone and blotchiness.
I had a definite improvemnt in my spot dermabraded area on my forehead. Dermabrasion by dr y is not a bad option for everyone. I just don't think I would ever try my full face because it took me soooo long to heal in that one little area. I'm talking like 8 months for total redness reduction!!! I also had underground cysts with my acne which may have formed little "caves" underneath my skin that could be unroofed with dermabrasion. I never seriously considered that aspect until lately.
Hi LOVE,
Haha dont tell me you actually listened to them did you? you must be in my age group then. I took my siggy off because I was just about ready to leave the board again LOL since Old Guy left much of the humour has gone and I feel out of place amongst all these youngsters plus the fact that very few pics get posted continues to frustrate me but your new avatar has given me reason to reconsider my departureAA LOL, darn your gorgeous.
Wow Ylen, I didnt think anyone else on here knew about subdermal acne. To those that dont know subdermal acne is the kind that never surfaces but all the damage went on but you just did not see it. Sometimes you can feel it and the soreness. It can produce scars- the sink hole effect. It also explains why some people get a scar where they did not see a zit form.
This (tunneling) was always my fear. I could never get a straight answer on it. I had someone ask Dr. Y for me, but I think they said he said it is uncommon. It scares me away from dermabrasion because it is impossible to detect before the procedure and devastating if you have it. It scares me a lot. I hope I don't need dermabrasion to get rid of my bumps....
well my scars have healed a good bit from what it's on my gallery, these were taken like two months after the acne had occured.
I went for a consultation and he felt my face, looked at my face and ran his hands and fingers through my scars, he said i have the type of scarring dermabrasion was made for so i'm hoping i see some good results.
What's the age of people who have done dermabrasion here??
Hi Niko,
I don't understand why Maya is in your list. She inspired me to not give up, gave me good advices, but never asked for anything back. I did not worship her, but I appreciated her for her geniune kindness, and admired her for her strength.
Regards,
Sword
I'm with Meet Pete and Healtysceptic on this one, this site has the strangest tendency to worship certain figures up to a cult status like Jesul lol. It was the same with Maya, the same with Needling, and now the Dermabrasion.
Well folks, i'm off to New Orleans at 6:00am tomorrow morning and it is now 6:30pm where i am, its my first ever trip abroad, and my first ever time on a plane, and its gonna take 3 plane's to get there! AAARGH! i am seriously beginning to sh!t myself now at the thought of this dermabrasion, but it has to be done, or i will always regret it! i wont be able to report back until i get back from nola, which will be in 2 weeks.
Wish me luck!
Well folks, i'm off to New Orleans at 6:00am tomorrow morning and it is now 6:30pm where i am, its my first ever trip abroad, and my first ever time on a plane, and its gonna take 3 plane's to get there! AAARGH! i am seriously beginning to sh!t myself now at the thought of this dermabrasion, but it has to be done, or i will always regret it! i wont be able to report back until i get back from nola, which will be in 2 weeks.
Wish me luck!
hiya peeps, well i'm just back from NewOrleans, and damn what a trip it was!!!! JESUS! it was my first time abroad ever, and i can't say i enjoyed it, although i didnt really expect to as i was only really going for the dermabrasion, not exactly a holiday, it took 3 flights to get there and 3 flights to get back,which was like about 15 hours each way, plus you go forward in time by 7 hours, which was a bit of a nightmare, but i soon adjusted.
I stayed at the Clarion hotel, which was recommended by a few people from this board, and also by pat who works at Dr Y's office she is the secretary, but yeah anyway i didn't like the clarion, it was really quite unclean, the carpets were filthy, as were the curtains, one of the telephone's in my room was broken, the towel rail was broken, the toilet leaked, and overflowed 3 times, the air fan didn't work oh and the restuarant was expensive! so all in all i had a shit stay, oh yeah not to mention today (which was my last day) the lift was out of order so me and my mum had to carry 2 large suitcases plus hand luggage without any help, down three flights of stairs, to get to the reception desk. We got compensation of $100 for our troubles, but they weren't too friendly about the whole ordeal, although one of the girls was really nice, and she acctually got us changed into another room on the 6th night, we stayed for a total of 13 nights.
So anyway i don't reccomend the place. i wouldn't stay there again!!!!
I got my dermabrasion done on Monday April the 4th at 10:00am i was really quite terrified on the morning and i went on an empty stomach (stupid me) they had to delay the whole procedure while i went down on to the 2nd floor of the hospital and had some toast and tea, in the cafe.
The procedure didn't start until about 10:30am, but it was a piece of cake, i didn't really find it painfull at all, i think i have quite a high pain thresh hold though, or so i've been told, i acctually expected it to be much worse, i didn't feel a thing hardly just a slight sting with the undereye tca peel, but no biggie.
this is getting kinda long huh.......sorry, i tend to ramble on.......
Anyway.....
Once i got back to the hotel i just kinda zonked out, and that whole day was just kind of a blur, the next day i got my face cleaned up and new bandages put on, and it was a nightmare to eat with, i just eat soup through a straw the whole day, oh yeah and yoghurt aswell. Once i got the bandages off on the last day it was such a relief i felt like i got a new lease of life, lol, my mum went straight to Mc Donalds and picked me up 2 cheeseburgers with large fries and i eat the lot!!! my face was really swollen though, and blood red, although i had some new pink skin on my forehead and my jaw, since day 2 i have drank a phenomenal amount of water, and fresh orange juice, and i have been eating lots of chicken and fresh fuit and veg aswell, and taking vitamins, just to get and get as much goodness in me as possible. my skin got better and better as the days went on, although i still look like a freak in my opionion, my face is BRIGHT RED and i have developed a LOT of acne, has anyone else developed this aswell? i have lots of small whiteheads all over my face, but i also have lumpy acne under the surface of the skin. i am now on day 11, but my face is still very tender, i have stopped using thre vaseline as Dr Y seems to think that was causing the breakouts, so i have been using the Eucerin cream for the past 3 days, although, i still have loads of white pustules and lumps under the skin, is this normal? as its worrying me!!! my face is just so unbeliveably dry, i am using Olay complete body wash to wash my face, as i was told its just the same as dove, if not better, and it seems really quite gentle. i still have quite a lot of dead skin to come off on my chin and above my lip just now, but i dont want to scrub to hard as it just tends to bleed, so i am just putting on loads of the Eucerine cream to try and soften it all. and hopefully within the next few days it will just come of with soap and the gauze squares.
Dr Y assured me that i would only need one dermabrasion as he classed my scarring as mild, and he told me i would have no reason to have punch floats.
At this point in time i cant see any of my old scars, but there is still some swelling, plus my skin is in quite a mess still from the procedure with redness, dryness, pustules etc, so it would be hard to tell anyway if i still had scarring, i don't intend on judging that until about 3-6mths time anyway.
I have it in my head that i will need another dermabrasion, but i just tend to worry like crazy.
Anyway i'm gonna go just now because i have been up for about 28hrs without any sleep, and i am jet lagged to hell.
Feel free for anyone to ask me any questions.
Amnesiac how you doing by the way? hit me back! x
Ciao for now.
Since this was the thread that got me started on the road to finding Dr. Y, I thought I would report back on this thread on how I am post-dermabrasion. It has been 2 weeks since I had my derma with Dr. Y. After a long flight back to Australia and lots of sleeping, I feel I can write coherently today.
Firstly, as everyone who has met Dr. Y and his staff agree, they really are the most wonderful ppl I have ever been treated by. Dr Y and Cass were just fantastic and my last day with them was so sad. It all started with hugs when I got there and lots of sad hugs when I left.
I found it especially cute that Cass and Dr. Y have been trying to learn our screen names on this forum! One morning when I went in to have my skin checked, Cass walked in and said, "Sword just called and said hello." LOL. So thank you Sword and John_Sydney who asked after me during their calls to Dr. Y, I was really touched.
I don't think I need to go into detail on the procedure of the dermabrasion as it has been so well covered by other ppl on this thread, but there are a few things I would like to add.
Dr Y and Cass were surprised at how fast I was healing from the dermabrasion, I think the reasons may be due to the following -
- I took supplements before and after the procedure. Before the procedure I took zinc and Vit C. After the procedure I took - zinc, Vit C, Probiotics, Pycnogenol, Vit E and also some recovery enzymes like Glucosamine. A few days before leaving New Orleans, I found some Bromelain vitamins at the local Walgreens (that helps improve the swelling).
- Cass advised after surgery that I should walk a lot after the surgery to help with the swelling and healing. So I often walked to and from the hotel to the surgery, it took about 45 minutes and it's such a pleasant walk down St. Charles Ave and Napoleon Ave.
- I drank lots and lots of water.
Right now it's exactly 2 weeks since the surgery. My face is a light pink, my nose and chin seems to be more red but I think the splotchiness is normal. I haven't had many problems with the pustules from the Vaseline, only 2 little ones that Cass extracted and nothing since then. My skin is starting to get itchy but I am slathering on the Cetaphil. I thought the Eucerin cream was really gross and slimey, I hated it and moved right on to Cetaphil.
As for improvements to scarring - I had lots of scarring on my forehead and temples. There were lighter scarring on both cheeks and jawline. After the bandages came off, I could still see the scarring and was a little depressed, I had expected the swelling to make the scarring disappear for a little while and was kinda looking forward to looking scar-free for a week or so. So far, the swelling continues to go down and I can see some more scars returning. Dr Y warned me of this (quite often!) and told me not to become too sad over it as the collagen will kick in. Even without the collagen kicking in, the scarring has been greatly improved. When my dad saw me at the airport yesterday, he couldn't believe how great I looked and said he saw 80% improvement. It was my turn to warn him that the swelling made the scarring more shallow
So far I am really happy I had this done. As the redness continues to fade, I think the scars that I do have will look more shallow as my skintone evens out. Right now I have scheduled an appointment with the Dermablend ppl and hopefully with the right makeup shade, I will be ready for work next week.
Dr. Y told me I would only need this one dermabrasion. My scarring was moderate but the improvements he could see were good. He said he would be happy to do a spot dermabrasion if I wanted in a year's time but only if I thought I needed it. With the improvements I can see so far, I think the spot dermabrasion would make my skin even better but I will wait for at least 6 months before making that decision. My recovery so far has been good. I have the tri-luma cream just in case of hyperpigmentation.
One last thing, Dr. Y and Cass remarked about how pleased they were we had such a supportive forum on this board and I totally agree. Thanks to all those posters who have been so helpful and supportive!
hey queenie,
just how much of each vitamin or supplement where you taking?
I am also doing the same, it's been around 3-4 months already and i've been taking daily 1g of vitamin C, a multivitamin, b-complex, vitamin a, avoiding vitamin E since it's recommended for after the surgery, also i am taking colostrum, i will try and keep all this up until the surgery and afterwards, just so the body is prepared to heal.
hey queenie,just how much of each vitamin or supplement where you taking?
I am also doing the same, it's been around 3-4 months already and i've been taking daily 1g of vitamin C, a multivitamin, b-complex, vitamin a, avoiding vitamin E since it's recommended for after the surgery, also i am taking colostrum, i will try and keep all this up until the surgery and afterwards, just so the body is prepared to heal.
Hi All,
I'm here for a short moment to make a return from the dead
Sorry I haven't been here in a while, I became overwhelmed with my work and had a move in between and relationship issues, etc... (ugh, life).
Anyway,
I wanted to give a little update here, I thought it would also be a good thing if I took a break from the board and let some time pass to assess the results more accurately.
As you may know, my dermabrasion was on Dec. 20, 2004.
As of today I still maintain significant improvement on my right side of my face, I would have to say a very good improvement of say 60-70%. Many people come up to me and when talking about my dermabrasion people will say "I notice a great deal of improvement on this side", etc...
As for my left side which had the most significant ice pick and hill and valley type scarring, it is improved but not nearly as significant. Initially this appeared to have been improved better. My tone has come back to normal 100% everywhere.
I have 1 hypertrophic scar from the procedure which I'm not happy with and will see Dr. Y when I go back to Louisiana to see family at some point this year. It's small but looks like a zit constantly. It's also a bit painful. It's where a punch float did not heal properly. (cheek)
As for my dark colored areas (flat mole growths - how gross) on the side of my head and face near my left temple and eye area, 100% gone with no sign of return - to me, the dermabrasion was worth it for that reason alone.
All scars have been softened everywhere. Some are gone completely.
My overall texture has improved significantly. People still comment on that. I feel it could be much better, but I suppose it has received vast improvement.
I don't think I'll have another Dermabrasion, unless Dr. Y feels I'd really benefit from it (only to rid the hypertrophic scar created by this process).
It's kinda a weird thing actually, it is still crusting regularly, after like 5 months.
I had been wanting dermabrasion since I was 16 and finally got it last Christmas. It was a gift to myself I had been waiting a long time for. While the results could have been better (wishes of course), I feel I did benefit well from this procedure and do not regret having it done at all.
I believe it was more traumatic than I was anticipating. The process is intense in my eyes.
I would recommend this procedure WITH punch floats to anyone with acne scarring.
I hope everyone is healing well from their dermabrasions and again I'm sorry for not popping my head in here sooner.
Cheers,
Chris - Portlandboy23
