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You guys are in no way out of luck. You guys can look into subcision and or fillers and possibly even microneedling which can be done at home for a low cost.
Did you guys ever get acne or chicken pox?
Hi Robertitoo,
I am considering needling, maybe with a dermstamp. After my skin started having problems though, I get kind of scared to do anything to it :/ I am always afraid I will somehow make it worse. However I am willing to try it, maybe sometime next year.
I did have acne when I was a teenager, but it was mostly on my forehead, and these scars are on my cheeks. I have had chicken pox when I was very young, and still have a scar from it as well. I wonder if the AHA somehow uncovered scars that already existed? I really have no idea. I just want them to go away 
I'm suffering with this too. Have to ask what are your digestive systems like? My stomach is really bad all the time.
Also, do u think that sometimes they just look really dry, almost like if u got some sand paper and buffed off the top layer, they would be gone?
Will Epiduo help against my AMVC facial spontaneous scarring?
If possibly a no, are any of you aware of a soloution to treat spontaneous scarring? I would really appreciate that as i've been experiencing it for awhile now..
As you may see on the picture below, I have those spontaneous scars that is not acne related. Some mornings when I wake up, randomly I have those spontaneous scars.
Are they permanent or temporary?
Sorry for the multi posting :c
My derm told me I deffo did not have amcv as he had treated it before but I'm not convinced. Think he was trying to make me feel better.
If it's of any comfort to any of u, this happened to me years ago whilst taking accutane and 4 months after my course they started to fill in and went away completly a year later. They're back now but I still have hope x
Mine don't look dry and flaky, the one big one is just wide, shallow and very slightly discolored, and then the smaller ones look like big stretched pores. It's been almost 7 months and they still look like crap....sigh.
edit....I shouldn't be so pessimistic I guess. I looked at my skin up close and some of my larger ice pick scarring actually looks smaller. I think I am underestimating the amount of time this is going to take to heal or at least improve, and I am getting impatient. I tried to take a pic for you guys but my camera just won't pick up the damage (I guess I should behappy about that) I mean you can see a tiny hole here and there in the pics but you can't see the full extent of it all. You can't even see the wide shallow scar that bugs me the most, and I had the setting on up close and super fine quality. Anyway, I haven't washed my face with water in 3 weeks and my skin is liking it. Yesteray I started gently putting a tiny amount of msm cream on scars only, and am going to experiment with that. I will do it twice a day (morning and night) I have read where some people had success with scarring and while it may not do anything, it seems safe enough and worth a try. As long as my skin doesn't get worse I'll report back in a month or so with how well it does or doesn't help me. I am waiting until a year passes before I try anything like needling. At this point I am just taking supplements and going to use the cream to try to aid my skins natural healing. My theory is that I stripped off too many layers with the glycolic acid and uncovered scars I didn't know I had, so maybe if I nurse my skin back to health they will become less noticeable. If anyone is wondering why I am not washing my face, it's because tap water is full of things that are damaging to your skin. I noticed the last time I washed my face with JUST water, my skin was disgustingly oily for nearly a week, and my pores looked bigger and my skintone was less even. Now after 3 weeks of no water, my skin is not oily at ALL, in fact it feels great to the touch (wish it looked as great, sigh). Well anyway, that's where I'm at with all of this. I wish you all the best.
Hi Boafriend,
Wow, that's a pricey doctor fee, but if you really do have something as serious as Lyme disease then I guess it would be worth it. Do you have all the other symptoms Lyme patients normally report, such as full-body aches and joint pains which go away and then come back in full force? I know it's a very difficult disease to diagnose and treat, so I hope for your sake it isn't Lyme!
But anyway, yes I do remember reading about your symptoms where you said you had random twitching as well as stabbing pains (I think) all over your body, which I do have but I attribute them to my back problems (degenerative discs) as I've had random spasms, twitching and many different types of nerve pain - stabbing, burning, radiating, etc. - all over my body as well but this is due to nerve impingement and started long ago. The constant "bubbling" or prickling sensation in my nose was a new symptom and felt different than the normal nerve pain, and only came about after my reaction to Augmentin in December. I am relieved that I hardly ever feel it anymore, so I do think it had to do with the rolling keratinocytes under my skin trying to heal the cell damage...but if it comes back I will certainly let you know! Do you think those sensations in your hair and eyebrows are nerve-related or do you think the sensations could actually be coming from the rolling keratinocytes under the skin in repair mode?
On that note, since I had started in with all my "internet remedies" only a week before I wrote to you, I should probably give an important update that if you have ANY type of nerve problem whatsoever, that taking oral glutathione is a bad idea. It worked for me the first few days in detoxing my skin and helping it stop the spontaneous scarring, but I read that the amino acids in the glutathione, particularly the glutamic acid and cysteine, are "Excitotoxins" that can really freak out and damage your nerves especially if you already have damaged nerves like me (they are "bound" in the pill form in a protein but apparently a nerve problem can make the glutamate become "free" which then can damage nerves). I think the major "detoxing reactions" I experienced were exactly that, so if I had to do it over again I think I would have rather gone for the skin patches that just tell your body to make more natural glutathione or I would have skipped it altogether and hoped the detox baths and skin products would have done the job. There is glutamic acid in the Revita-Cyte Complex, and the seaweed powder is also high in natural glutamate, so there is a chance of excitotoxicity if you add oral glutathione to the mix, expecially the reduced glutathione, which is supposedly the most potent kind. So be really, really careful and like I said, do lots of research on it especially if you think you might have a nerve problem with the random twitching everywhere.
By the way, to answer your question I only took a single 50mg pill of oral glutathione and 2 of the 420mg phosphatidyl choline per day, for only the first three days. I then began alternating baths with the supplements but had completely stopped after 7 days when I could feel my nerves getting too overexcited. The good news is that even when my nerves got overexcited - tingling and numbness in my extremities - the constant prickling in my nose never came back, so I'm doubly sure it had nothing to do with nerves. I am so happy to hear you had no severe detoxing symptoms from the oral glutathione...did you feel any burning in your skin or scars coming up after you took it?
Oh and about the sweat thing, wow, that's weird. (I just don't see why doctors aren't fascinated with your case and determined to get to the bottom of it...you'd think they'd be obsessed with trying to figure it out!) But strangely, I have had odd sweating symptoms as well...not armpit sweating that streams, but more like whole body cold sweats in the middle of the night where I wake up completely drenched. It's happened a few times since after my surgery which was strange since I can't remember it ever happening before that. So that's interesting that you brought it up. I will try to look into it and see what I can find.
And I really hate to interfere with your own treatment or offer any advice that would cause you to question your better judgment, but if it were me, I would not take any more antibiotics unless I KNEW I had a serious bacterial infection and I KNEW that that particular antibiotic would kill off that infection. And even then I would research alternative natural remedies and try them first. But that's just me.
I pray you will be able to know if spending the money on that new lyme literate doctor is the right way to go...I am so sorry this has been such a never-ending nightmare for you! I have had the same frustrations with unhelpful and expensive dermatologists and doctors and I just don't know what to do anymore myself, which of course is why I'm scouring the forums! Keep me posted on what you decide to do and any successes or disappointments with your self-treatment...I am definitely open to any suggestions you might have! As for me, as of now I am off the glutathione permanently and Revita-Cyte complex temporarily until my nerves return to normal (I'm taking Taurine and aspirin dissolved in hot water to heal the excitotoxicity). I really miss it since I saw such good results in taking away the scars, but the vitamin C serum is still doing a great job. Since my skin feels a bit stronger I have started very lightly applying a baking soda mixed with a small amount of water facial scrub to reduce the scars and pores and unevenness of my skin. I am also trying a few supplements to detoxify my liver (apparently your liver makes glutathione so it's important to keep it healthy). All in all I'm still pretty happy. We'll see if the spontaneous scarring stays stopped!
Thank you for the response. Yeah, I actually have been taking the supplements for 4 days or so now. No severe effects, but I'll yield your new warning and just stop then (I didn't do any research into any of what you were suggesting). I'm gonna have to wait a while for the lyme literate doctor since she had to postpone my appointment back by another week. They will do a blood test for any lyme co-infections, which then takes 7-10 days for results to come out for. So essentially I would get some real answers by the end of this month or beginning of August. It really sucks.
Hey guys,
About 3 months ago I managed to screw my skin up, I was on topical Retin-A and noticed that I was starting to get scars very easily (at the time I didn't think they were permanent) and realized about a month ago that my skin was soft/"mushy" in the sense that if someone barely pressed their nail into my skin it would leave an indented scar (my fiance went to fix her hair one day and accidentally jabbed me, lightly, with her finger nail, which left a huge vertical line in my forehead) my life has been flipped upside down since this all started, and no one seems to understand - the depression this has caused has been unreal, i've never felt so low. Maybe this is what's happening to some of you that are/were using topicals and experiencing scarring as well? My skin would scar so easily that if I were to scratch my face if I had an itch I would scar. I've been trying all kinds of different things in hopes that i'd see some results but so far, nothing has helped at all, it's completely flipped my life upside down - I know how you guys are feeling, the depression and the anxiety is overwhelming, especially because it seemingly happens overnight without warning, no breakouts, no broken skin or injury and bam: a new scar.
I've always had pretty tough skin and taken care of it, i'm definitely not scar-prone, before this I had a pretty smooth complexion, aside from a small ice pick scar on my cheek that's never bothered me and no one has ever mentioned, now i'm dealing with scarred pores, enlarged pores, and vertical scars all over the place, what a nightmare.
Every day it's a struggle, and I can't help but think about what I was like before all this, not just physically but emotionally - i'm a wreck, and the people in my life that i've tried to talk to about it really don't get it, so in a sense i'm glad to be here with people who understand and are dealing with it as well, though i'm sorry so many of us are effected by this; I know how difficult it can be and how it can have a profound impact on not just your own life but those around you as well.
What kind of scars did you guys get, icepick, boxscar, rolling and has anyone had the vertical finger nail scars like I started getting? I hope we start to see some progress soon - even slightly would be a sign of progression.
Hey guys,
About 3 months ago I managed to screw my skin up, I was on topical Retin-A and noticed that I was starting to get scars very easily (at the time I didn't think they were permanent) and realized about a month ago that my skin was soft/"mushy" in the sense that if someone barely pressed their nail into my skin it would leave an indented scar (my fiance went to fix her hair one day and accidentally jabbed me, lightly, with her finger nail, which left a huge vertical line in my forehead) my life has been flipped upside down since this all started, and no one seems to understand - the depression this has caused has been unreal, i've never felt so low. Maybe this is what's happening to some of you that are/were using topicals and experiencing scarring as well? My skin would scar so easily that if I were to scratch my face if I had an itch I would scar. I've been trying all kinds of different things in hopes that i'd see some results but so far, nothing has helped at all, it's completely flipped my life upside down - I know how you guys are feeling, the depression and the anxiety is overwhelming, especially because it seemingly happens overnight without warning, no breakouts, no broken skin or injury and bam: a new scar.
I've always had pretty tough skin and taken care of it, i'm definitely not scar-prone, before this I had a pretty smooth complexion, aside from a small ice pick scar on my cheek that's never bothered me and no one has ever mentioned, now i'm dealing with scarred pores, enlarged pores, and vertical scars all over the place, what a nightmare.
Every day it's a struggle, and I can't help but think about what I was like before all this, not just physically but emotionally - i'm a wreck, and the people in my life that i've tried to talk to about it really don't get it, so in a sense i'm glad to be here with people who understand and are dealing with it as well, though i'm sorry so many of us are effected by this; I know how difficult it can be and how it can have a profound impact on not just your own life but those around you as well.
What kind of scars did you guys get, icepick, boxscar, rolling and has anyone had the vertical finger nail scars like I started getting? I hope we start to see some progress soon - even slightly would be a sign of progression.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. It has been a nightmare for me and I know how you feel. I've been pretty deep in depression for the past 7 months over this. Luckily I am not scarring any more and my skin seems to be back to it's usual strength, but I am still left with the scars that I got initially. I was never prone to scars either, and the only real scars I had before were one chicken pox scar that I had forever, and a scar from a piercing I had on my face. Other than that my skin was quite nice. Now I have enlarged pores, and most of the scarring I got is icepick scarring, though I got one shallow wider scar that is slightly discolored, and I'm not sure what kind of scar it is. I can say 7 months later, some of the smaller icepick scars are looking a little less noticeable, but if and when all of the scarring will get better I don't know. I did not use Retin-a but I did use glycolic acid 10% and that's when my problems started. Before that my skin could take just about anything. I just wanted to let you know, I have read stories of this happening to people using Retin-a or a retinol product, and some of them did heal. One woman whose story I read took her over a year to heal, I think nearly 2 years, but she did. I don't know if our skin damage is similar since we were both using different topicals, but if I were you I would stick to nothing but gentle skincare from now on. No acids or anything harsh, give your skin a break. I'm sure you probably already know that, but I think it's very important. I wish you all the best, and if you ever need to talk to someone feel free to send me a message.
Hi, I've done a little bit of research on AMVC... as I was actually experiencing spontaneous scarring for a short period of time and for whatever reason eventually stopped getting new scars. I wonder if subcision would be the safest way to go in this kind if situation? Since you are just treating the scars themselves and not surrounding skin...less chance of inflammation triggering more scars. Has anyone had this done? I'm just curious. I feel so sorry for anyone who has to deal with this.
Hi, my scarring is very shallow, you almost can't tell it is a scar some times....but my worst scar is slightly pink, so it looks so obvious
The only thing that could possibly work is microneedling. Make sure you apply a quality vitamin C serum afterwards. Also, as you may know, seeing improvement will take a very long time, unfortunately. It's easy to get frustrated and discouraged and want to give up, but don't.
Also, I wouldn't advise listening to people who say to needle/stamp every week...absolutely ridiculous. At most once every 2 weeks if you want to be aggressive. As for MSM cream, I have heard some people reporting success....I tried MSM cream but it was only for a month and I didn't see any notable improvement. I would say try for vitamin C since it's the main ingredient shown to help with collagen, but definitely combine your topical application of it with needling of some sort so the stuff gets deep into your scar tissue.
Hi boafriend, thanks for the suggestions. I have attempted single needling on one of my worst icepick scars as a sort of experiment to see how my skin will react to needling. Have you needled any of your scars and had improvements? I know it takes a long time. Right now it looks better just because there is a tiny skin colored scab over it so it doesn't look like a hole (been about a week), but I know it will be noticeable again when the scab falls off. If I feel it is helping I will probably try doing that once a month. I just hope I don't make anything worse. That almost always seems to be the case when I try to make my skin better these days. :/
I gave up on the MSM cream, I felt it was making my skin look worse. I am now just washing my face with CeraVe hydrating cleanser morning and night and that's all I am putting on my skin. I still plan on giving Osmosis a try early next year. Until then I am going to keep doing what I am doing I guess.
Hey guys,
About 3 months ago I managed to screw my skin up, I was on topical Retin-A and noticed that I was starting to get scars very easily (at the time I didn't think they were permanent) and realized about a month ago that my skin was soft/"mushy" in the sense that if someone barely pressed their nail into my skin it would leave an indented scar (my fiance went to fix her hair one day and accidentally jabbed me, lightly, with her finger nail, which left a huge vertical line in my forehead) my life has been flipped upside down since this all started, and no one seems to understand - the depression this has caused has been unreal, i've never felt so low. Maybe this is what's happening to some of you that are/were using topicals and experiencing scarring as well? My skin would scar so easily that if I were to scratch my face if I had an itch I would scar. I've been trying all kinds of different things in hopes that i'd see some results but so far, nothing has helped at all, it's completely flipped my life upside down - I know how you guys are feeling, the depression and the anxiety is overwhelming, especially because it seemingly happens overnight without warning, no breakouts, no broken skin or injury and bam: a new scar.
I've always had pretty tough skin and taken care of it, i'm definitely not scar-prone, before this I had a pretty smooth complexion, aside from a small ice pick scar on my cheek that's never bothered me and no one has ever mentioned, now i'm dealing with scarred pores, enlarged pores, and vertical scars all over the place, what a nightmare.
Every day it's a struggle, and I can't help but think about what I was like before all this, not just physically but emotionally - i'm a wreck, and the people in my life that i've tried to talk to about it really don't get it, so in a sense i'm glad to be here with people who understand and are dealing with it as well, though i'm sorry so many of us are effected by this; I know how difficult it can be and how it can have a profound impact on not just your own life but those around you as well.
What kind of scars did you guys get, icepick, boxscar, rolling and has anyone had the vertical finger nail scars like I started getting? I hope we start to see some progress soon - even slightly would be a sign of progression.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. It has been a nightmare for me and I know how you feel. I've been pretty deep in depression for the past 7 months over this. Luckily I am not scarring any more and my skin seems to be back to it's usual strength, but I am still left with the scars that I got initially. I was never prone to scars either, and the only real scars I had before were one chicken pox scar that I had forever, and a scar from a piercing I had on my face. Other than that my skin was quite nice. Now I have enlarged pores, and most of the scarring I got is icepick scarring, though I got one shallow wider scar that is slightly discolored, and I'm not sure what kind of scar it is. I can say 7 months later, some of the smaller icepick scars are looking a little less noticeable, but if and when all of the scarring will get better I don't know. I did not use Retin-a but I did use glycolic acid 10% and that's when my problems started. Before that my skin could take just about anything. I just wanted to let you know, I have read stories of this happening to people using Retin-a or a retinol product, and some of them did heal. One woman whose story I read took her over a year to heal, I think nearly 2 years, but she did. I don't know if our skin damage is similar since we were both using different topicals, but if I were you I would stick to nothing but gentle skincare from now on. No acids or anything harsh, give your skin a break. I'm sure you probably already know that, but I think it's very important. I wish you all the best, and if you ever need to talk to someone feel free to send me a message.
>
Hi, I've done a little bit of research on AMVC... as I was actually experiencing spontaneous scarring for a short period of time and for whatever reason eventually stopped getting new scars. I wonder if subcision would be the safest way to go in this kind if situation? Since you are just treating the scars themselves and not surrounding skin...less chance of inflammation triggering more scars. Has anyone had this done? I'm just curious. I feel so sorry for anyone who has to deal with this.
Hi, my scarring is very shallow, you almost can't tell it is a scar some times....but my worst scar is slightly pink, so it looks so obvious
The only thing that could possibly work is microneedling. Make sure you apply a quality vitamin C serum afterwards. Also, as you may know, seeing improvement will take a very long time, unfortunately. It's easy to get frustrated and discouraged and want to give up, but don't.
Also, I wouldn't advise listening to people who say to needle/stamp every week...absolutely ridiculous. At most once every 2 weeks if you want to be aggressive. As for MSM cream, I have heard some people reporting success....I tried MSM cream but it was only for a month and I didn't see any notable improvement. I would say try for vitamin C since it's the main ingredient shown to help with collagen, but definitely combine your topical application of it with needling of some sort so the stuff gets deep into your scar tissue.
Hi boafriend, thanks for the suggestions. I have attempted single needling on one of my worst icepick scars as a sort of experiment to see how my skin will react to needling. Have you needled any of your scars and had improvements? I know it takes a long time. Right now it looks better just because there is a tiny skin colored scab over it so it doesn't look like a hole (been about a week), but I know it will be noticeable again when the scab falls off. If I feel it is helping I will probably try doing that once a month. I just hope I don't make anything worse. That almost always seems to be the case when I try to make my skin better these days. :/
I gave up on the MSM cream, I felt it was making my skin look worse. I am now just washing my face with CeraVe hydrating cleanser morning and night and that's all I am putting on my skin. I still plan on giving Osmosis a try early next year. Until then I am going to keep doing what I am doing I guess.
Yeah microneeling takes time. It took me over half year to even see SOME improvement in my worst scars (two pockmarks on my right cheek). You have to be consistent. Vitamin C is probably the best topical to none in this, and some people say copper peptides can help (do NOT get anything from SkinBiology though - their stuff has been said on multipe forums to be bad). MSM cream doesn't do anything, either. Know that a topical alone will not do you any good - to see any improvement, you must use some sort or some sorts of physical treatment to have any improvement, be it laser, microneedling, subcision, microdermabrasion, peels, etc.
Hi all, I see a few folks mention that retinols should be avoided regarding AMVC, is that the consensus? Or is it just stronger products like retin-a?
I am because I currently use green cream level 9 every other day and use Jason vitamin c hyper serum in between (alternating).
Also those that speak about itching and crawling on the skin/eye brows, look into demodex
Hi all, I see a few folks mention that retinols should be avoided regarding AMVC, is that the consensus? Or is it just stronger products like retin-a?
I am because I currently use green cream level 9 every other day and use Jason vitamin c hyper serum in between (alternating).
Also those that speak about itching and crawling on the skin/eye brows, look into demodex
Hi, I have exchanged a few e-mails with a woman who was damaged by an over the counter retinol product. It took a little over a month of use but she ended up with orange peel texture, huge pores and some random scars. She said she got better after a couple years, but even a non prescription retinol has the potential to cause damage. Obviously this won't happen to everyone though. If I were going to try a retinol product (which I personally won't because I already know I am prone to this weird scarring thing) I would take it very slow. Good luck!
Hi all, I see a few folks mention that retinols should be avoided regarding AMVC, is that the consensus? Or is it just stronger products like retin-a?
I am because I currently use green cream level 9 every other day and use Jason vitamin c hyper serum in between (alternating).
Also those that speak about itching and crawling on the skin/eye brows, look into demodex
Thank you, I think it's mentioned in similar threads on other forums. The problem with demodex mites is that usually they leave rashes and redness, which in my case I had none of. I already had a skin scraping done a few months after this madness started 2 years ago, but the scraping found nothing.
Besides, my crawling sensations are accompanied by physical twitching, tremors, buzzing sensations, and excessive sweating. I went ahead and went to that outrageously expensive Lyme doctor I spoke of previously. She says we can probably rule out tick borne diseases for now, but she is having tests run on my immunity (immune system) and she is ordering deeper tests for vitamin and mineral compositon in my body. She thinks my issues are stemming from a very bad food poisoning experience I had abroad 3 years ago, which she thinks really damaged my immune system, and never recovered. But she says something else is also causing chronic inflammation in my body, which she hopes the testing can point out.
Hmm, interesting, what did she use to recover? Also were the large pores localized to a specific area?
I believe she just washed her face with raw honey and moisturized with emu oil for a long time. If you ask me her skin was very inflamed and time is probably what healed her the most. Her large pores were all over her cheeks.
I also took retin-a over the summer to rid myself of some tiny bumps on my ski, I think they were just clogged pores from the heat and sweat. Like that woman reported, I got hit with huge pores all over my cheeks and nose, and a bunch of tiny scars and scarred pores. I had that creeping feeling and itchy feeling on my face as well but I had just started a real job and was googling all kinds of crap about my face at work. My oil production was exploding and I think honestly the feeling was just the sebaceous glands kicking into 10th gear from my hormones and anxiety. I went on accutane after that because all of those enlarged pores clogged up terribly. I said that about the oil and itchyness because I don't get it anymore at all, not nearly as much oil anymore obviously. I am about 2 weeks off accutane. Still seems like new scars are forming but hard to tell, if I take the flashlight on my iphone and hold it to my cheeks I can see like scattered light pink/purple areas and usually (but not always), a shallow scar forms there. I guess I probably shouldn't be exposing my face to a light like that?
What else, uhhhh pores every where for sure however I think I may be improving a tiny bit. Accutane was irritating my skin and perhaps making it worse to a degree, so a little rest and relaxation has been nice for it. Ive noticed the past few months that I seem to have rosacea or something. Any mildly stressful situation and I can feel my cheeks heat up. All of my pores and tiny scars happen to be in the area that gets red and flames up (cheeks and nose). Sucks pretty bad, and I definitely have depressing ass days but I havent given up yet. I am currently using a sulphur wash 1x a day to see if it helps with the (possible) rosacea/face flushing. I think it has helped a little so far, only used for like 1.5 weeks but they seem to be less frequent. I throw on lotion with 70 spf in the am and cetaphil after cleansing at night. I also take this collagen supplement that I bought of gnc online that many people said helped their scars and filled out their face. Before that I was taking vitamin C supplements because they boost collagen as well. I also take tumeric supplements and some stuff for my stomach orally.
Wonder if this sounds familiar to any one or anybody has experienced progress? I was def gonna look at dermastamping and using vitamin C serum later on ( waiting cause of accutane obviously). Can I start using the vita C serum earlier though? Should I?