I have had mild acne shallow boxed and ice picked scars after acnes. I hate them but they didn't look too bad. Recently, most of the time when the acnes are gone, they leave boxed scars on my face even though I didn't pop them out. I just use Dan's BP treatment until they go away. Why is this happening? I eat healthy organic food, work out regularly. I do take supplement vitamins everyday. My scars have gotten a lot worse than before because of this. I got 2 new boxed scars right between the two eye browns. It's very annoying when I see them every time I look in the mirror. It seems like my skin is losing it's elasticity. What should I do?
I've had really bad acne before, but oddly enough I didn't get any visible scars when my cysts healed. However now when I'm breaking out just moderately, I have much more of scar building going on and I can only draw a conclusion that my skin got drier and less elastic during years of harsh bp treatment and that's why I get scars much easier. Besides, the older you get, the less your skin is capable to produce enough of collagen to heal the skin properly.
How old are you if you don't mind me asking? Have you had any stress lately (i.e. severe stress)?
Which supplements do you take
I take over the counter vitamins supp like Centrum and stuffs. I recently start taking Collagen. I'm in my late 20's and don't have any stress lately. I don't smoke or drink heavily.
Pianina talked about the skin being dry. I think that might be one of the causes for my problem. I don't like using moisturizer because I have a complex skin type. It gets dry after washing then gets really oily later on. Moisturizers make my skin more oily. I have started using moisturizer recently though.
I also think if it is BP's aftermath effect. I have been using Dan's BP for a few years now. May be BP has made my skin more prone to scars?
I read on this forum about the Lemon/Vinegar method to clear up scars. I will give it a try. Has anyone had success with that method?
What are other options to get rid of the scars that requires minimal downtime? Incisions?
Thanks guys,
I have suffered this too and i take an antihistamine daily as it's supposed to reduce some of the inflammation that can cause acne scarring. I'd recommend you start taking a daily antihistamine to minimise any further scarring. Also i had acne for around 15 years until i started scarring. I didn't get any scars until i hit 30 and they worsened after roaccutane.
The easy solution is to wash your face more frequently. You are getting acne due to both an increase in sebum production and a bacterial infection. If you wash more frequently using a cleaner, then moisturize, you will reduce the amount of sebum clogging your pores and the acne will decrease. The more sebum that you allow to accumulate, the deeper the clog will be, and the higher the likelihood that the pimple will scar. It may take some trial and error, but you will find the correct number of washings you need per day to decrease the severity of your acne so it wont scar. For me, it is approximately every 4 hours. At that point I need to either wash or use a cleansing wipe.
There is no need to mess around with antihistamines, and while diet alterations may help slightly, increasing the frequency of your washings will fix this problem. Good luck.
The easy solution is to wash your face more frequently. You are getting acne due to both an increase in sebum production and a bacterial infection. If you wash more frequently using a cleaner, then moisturize, you will reduce the amount of sebum clogging your pores and the acne will decrease. The more sebum that you allow to accumulate, the deeper the clog will be, and the higher the likelihood that the pimple will scar. It may take some trial and error, but you will find the correct number of washings you need per day to decrease the severity of your acne so it wont scar. For me, it is approximately every 4 hours. At that point I need to either wash or use a cleansing wipe.
There is no need to mess around with antihistamines, and while diet alterations may help slightly, increasing the frequency of your washings will fix this problem. Good luck.
Not trying to debunk your methods here, but I really disagree. Washing your face more often is not a good solution. Your skin needs sebum on the surface as it's a natural lubricant. To continuously remove this from our skin would lead to more sebum production and irritation. I know you said you wash 4 times a day and that that works for you, that's wonderful and I'm glad it does. But, advising someone to do the same and promising this as the solution is a really bad call in my opinion. There is greater potential for this to aggravate the acne rather than prevent it.
Twice a day is more realistic and should the skin become oily during the day then I would recommend using blotting paper to remove the excess sebum without removing it completely. I use blotting paper during the day and this, combined with my skin care regime, has been the only thing that has ever worked for clearing my acne.
I have had mild acne shallow boxed and ice picked scars after acnes. I hate them but they didn't look too bad. Recently, most of the time when the acnes are gone, they leave boxed scars on my face even though I didn't pop them out. I just use Dan's BP treatment until they go away. Why is this happening? I eat healthy organic food, work out regularly. I do take supplement vitamins everyday. My scars have gotten a lot worse than before because of this. I got 2 new boxed scars right between the two eye browns. It's very annoying when I see them every time I look in the mirror. It seems like my skin is losing it's elasticity. What should I do?
Personally I would swap the BP for a Retinoid asap. BP would be my last choice if all other acne products failed to work. Why? BP is a pro-oxidant which is exactly what you don't want on your skin long term. BP attracts free radical damage which may cause excess melanin and cell damage. This in turn may make your scarring worse or may actually help your spots create scars. BP inhibits the skin's ability to heal. Yes it's great for acne spots as it has antibacterial properties but that's about it.
Also, with BP use you cannot use Vitamin C products and that is another big bad! BP = pro-oxidant, Vitamin C= anti-oxidant. They cancel one another out. Vitamin C is so crucial to your skin that the thought of being without it makes me cringe!
Retinoids, Vitamin C, Niacinamide, zinc based sunscreen... ten times better for your skin!
Thanks guys. So BP is really the suspect then. I don't really have many pimples now. I get a few here and there but i need to rely on BP to keep them clear. I only apply BP at night. I will stop using BP now.
Apart from BP, I only use Neutrogena Oil-Free combination skin Moisturizer after washing my face with Neutrogena rapid clear oil eliminator facewash. I'd like to minimize putting chemicals on my face. I think they do more harms than good.
What does antihistamine do to scars? Does it help healing scars?
Is Retinoids an Acne Topical treatment alternative to BP? I think I will just let the pimples heal themselves without using any treatment.
How do I go about treating my existing boxed and ice picked scars?
I have suffered this too and i take an antihistamine daily as it's supposed to reduce some of the inflammation that can cause acne scarring. I'd recommend you start taking a daily antihistamine to minimise any further scarring. Also i had acne for around 15 years until i started scarring. I didn't get any scars until i hit 30 and they worsened after roaccutane.
The easy solution is to wash your face more frequently. You are getting acne due to both an increase in sebum production and a bacterial infection. If you wash more frequently using a cleaner, then moisturize, you will reduce the amount of sebum clogging your pores and the acne will decrease. The more sebum that you allow to accumulate, the deeper the clog will be, and the higher the likelihood that the pimple will scar. It may take some trial and error, but you will find the correct number of washings you need per day to decrease the severity of your acne so it wont scar. For me, it is approximately every 4 hours. At that point I need to either wash or use a cleansing wipe.
There is no need to mess around with antihistamines, and while diet alterations may help slightly, increasing the frequency of your washings will fix this problem. Good luck.
Not trying to debunk your methods here, but I really disagree. Washing your face more often is not a good solution. Your skin needs sebum on the surface as it's a natural lubricant. To continuously remove this from our skin would lead to more sebum production and irritation. I know you said you wash 4 times a day and that that works for you, that's wonderful and I'm glad it does. But, advising someone to do the same and promising this as the solution is a really bad call in my opinion. There is greater potential for this to aggravate the acne rather than prevent it.
Twice a day is more realistic and should the skin become oily during the day then I would recommend using blotting paper to remove the excess sebum without removing it completely. I use blotting paper during the day and this, combined with my skin care regime, has been the only thing that has ever worked for clearing my acne.
>>>I have had mild acne shallow boxed and ice picked scars after acnes. I hate them but they didn't look too bad. Recently, most of the time when the acnes are gone, they leave boxed scars on my face even though I didn't pop them out. I just use Dan's BP treatment until they go away. Why is this happening? I eat healthy organic food, work out regularly. I do take supplement vitamins everyday. My scars have gotten a lot worse than before because of this. I got 2 new boxed scars right between the two eye browns. It's very annoying when I see them every time I look in the mirror. It seems like my skin is losing it's elasticity. What should I do?
Personally I would swap the BP for a Retinoid asap. BP would be my last choice if all other acne products failed to work. Why? BP is a pro-oxidant which is exactly what you don't want on your skin long term. BP attracts free radical damage which may cause excess melanin and cell damage. This in turn may make your scarring worse or may actually help your spots create scars. BP inhibits the skin's ability to heal. Yes it's great for acne spots as it has antibacterial properties but that's about it.
Also, with BP use you cannot use Vitamin C products and that is another big bad! BP = pro-oxidant, Vitamin C= anti-oxidant. They cancel one another out. Vitamin C is so crucial to your skin that the thought of being without it makes me cringe!
Retinoids, Vitamin C, Niacinamide, zinc based sunscreen... ten times better for your skin!
I respect your willingness to help, but I'm afraid your opinion on sebum is a bit misguided. While it is true that sebum is a natural lubricant, that doesn't mean that it is a particularly good one. Unfortunately, our bodies aren't made to pump out high end Neutrogena and Cetaphil moisturizers, it just doesn't work that way. Over the counter products such as the alcohols, salicylic acids, etc. are in low enough concentrations that they will not produce excessive irritation when used appropriately. Using a moisturizer after washings will inhibit the little feedback mechanism that there would be for your body to produce excess sebum.
The reason Sebum is such a poor moisturizer is that it WILL clog pores in excess, and those clogs will lead to inflammation of the sebaceous glands due to the presence of infectious bacteria. It is impossible to keep the bacteria off of your face completely so it is in the best interest of the patient to keep the sebum to a MINIMUM in order to prevent this clogging and subsequent infection to occur. Those who suffer from severe acne have hypertrophied sebaceous glands that are producing far more sebum than the typical person. If the clog and inflammation occurs in the dermis, which is likely for someone producing a very high amount of sebum, that acne lesion is more likely to scar.
I also do not agree with your suggestion to eliminate the BP from the OP's regiment. Yes, BP is an oxidant, it will promote free radicals, it will hinder healing, it will increase the duration of hyperpigmentation and all those terrible things (literally everything you do causes free radicals), but what was not mentioned in that while BP is on your face, it will drastically decrease sebum production. THAT is the most important and effective mechanism of BP, and that can not be overstated. It is not practical for someone who produces a large amount of sebum to wake up every so many hours in the middle of the night to wash their face and go back to sleep. What BP does is eliminate the need to do that. Your belief that BP's main mechanism of action is to eliminate bacteria is not really true. It WILL kill bacteria, but unless you have BP on your face 24 hours a day, that really doesn't mean much, and keeping it on your face all day will just irritate your skin.
One side effect of BP that the OP SHOULD be aware of is that it WILL increase sebum production when the product is not on your face any longer, which would require more frequent washings or the use of cleansing pads. Again, it is important to moisturize when using these products.
Did you actively use BP during the 15 years dealing with acnes?
Only ever a couple of times as my skin couldn't tolerate it. Roaccutane promotes poor healing which leads to scarring which probably caused most of my scars. I take an anti-histamine daily as my dermatologist told me i might be suffering from AMVC which causes random scarring seemingly out of no-where. I didn't get most of these scars until i came off Roaccutane and they gradually got worse over the space of a year even though my acne was long gone.
Anti-histamines are supposed to help reduce the inflammation that could be causing the random scars to appear. I don't know if anti-histamines help stop scars forming from regular spots, but it won't do you any harm to take it and see if it helps you.
I respect your willingness to help, but I'm afraid your opinion on sebum is a bit misguided. While it is true that sebum is a natural lubricant, that doesn't mean that it is a particularly good one. Unfortunately, our bodies aren't made to pump out high end Neutrogena and Cetaphil moisturizers, it just doesn't work that way. Over the counter products such as the alcohols, salicylic acids, etc. are in low enough concentrations that they will not produce excessive irritation when used appropriately. Using a moisturizer after washings will inhibit the little feedback mechanism that there would be for your body to produce excess sebum.
The reason Sebum is such a poor moisturizer is that it WILL clog pores in excess, and those clogs will lead to inflammation of the sebaceous glands due to the presence of infectious bacteria. It is impossible to keep the bacteria off of your face completely so it is in the best interest of the patient to keep the sebum to a MINIMUM in order to prevent this clogging and subsequent infection to occur. Those who suffer from severe acne have hypertrophied sebaceous glands that are producing far more sebum than the typical person. If the clog and inflammation occurs in the dermis, which is likely for someone producing a very high amount of sebum, that acne lesion is more likely to scar.
I also do not agree with your suggestion to eliminate the BP from the OP's regiment. Yes, BP is an oxidant, it will promote free radicals, it will hinder healing, it will increase the duration of hyperpigmentation and all those terrible things (literally everything you do causes free radicals), but what was not mentioned in that while BP is on your face, it will drastically decrease sebum production. THAT is the most important and effective mechanism of BP, and that can not be overstated. It is not practical for someone who produces a large amount of sebum to wake up every so many hours in the middle of the night to wash their face and go back to sleep. What BP does is eliminate the need to do that. Your belief that BP's main mechanism of action is to eliminate bacteria is not really true. It WILL kill bacteria, but unless you have BP on your face 24 hours a day, that really doesn't mean much, and keeping it on your face all day will just irritate your skin.
One side effect of BP that the OP SHOULD be aware of is that it WILL increase sebum production when the product is not on your face any longer, which would require more frequent washings or the use of cleansing pads. Again, it is important to moisturize when using these products.
Misguided? Hardly. I know you meant no offence though.
Thanks for your view on this, makes for an interesting read but I still disagree on both points. I've done my fair share of research and have spoken to many derms and professionals so I truly believe my facts are all in order. That's beside the point here though as I will resign to agree to disagree.
For the sake of the OP's thread I won't continue the debate. In the end at least they have more than one view on the subject and can draw their own conclusions from it. Let's hope whatever they choose in the end it works wonders.