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Icepick Scars Treatments?

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(@konkon13)

Posted : 01/27/2015 12:26 am

I had acne starting in second grade. My aunt loved picking at my skin. It really stuck with me and I continued doing it myself from then on. I was put on accutane when I was in 8th grade and it cleared up my skin in about a year.

 

Permanent damage was done to my skin. I was left with pretty bad scarring on both my cheeks. I spent $1600 on fraxel laser treatment. It only slightly improved the appearance. I don't think that establishment had my best interests at heart.

 

I was wondering if anyone could give input on what they think would be best for this type of scarring? I really wish I could have smooth skin. I doubt that will ever be possible...but I like to stay positive!

 

I included pictures of my skin :) Oh, I am 19 and female if that matters. Haha

post-447829-0-62487100-1422336277_thumb.

post-447829-0-34015000-1422336301_thumb.

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(@lenlenlen)

Posted : 01/28/2015 2:09 am

You might want to try TCA peels for pores and TCA cross for ice pick scars. Hope this helps! :)

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(@mlj123)

Posted : 02/03/2015 2:11 am

I very much sympathize as I have similar scarring from acne as well.

I'd suggest reading the following thread:

The OP did the community a huge favor by going into so much detail over a span of a couple years.

A few months ago, I looked into fractional CO2 and on 1/20/15, I received treatment. Your face is quite bloody right after the treatment. And my face took about 7-8 days to heal. It's about 13 days out, and my face is presentable, but I do have some mild redness (erythema) that mostly looks like a mild/medium sunburn (I was told it will fade over the next month). Some people take longer to heal, and some people have redness or hyperpigmentation (darkening of skin) that persists for several months after treatment. I haven't noticed any dramatic improvement, but as I understand, full results are not realized until 3-6 months after treatment. Also, I've read that you need to receive multiple treatments to achieve best results. I don't know what my results will be like once I've finished, but this path looks promising to me, so I'm going to see it through. My experience with the healing cycle/post treatment regimen is pretty much how the guy in the thread described it.

As far as I can tell, it is incredibly important to find someone who knows how to handle the laser. Not every doctor or surgeon who owns a fractional CO2 laser knows how to use it properly, leading to botched jobs (you can find some pretty horrific reviews of the treatment if you perform a google search). I can't stress this enough. If you end up pursuing this treatment, only receive treatment from someone who is extremely experienced with this treatment.

I had several microdermabrasion treatments and several fraxel:restore treatments (erbium laser; not fraxel:repair which is a co2 laser) and they pretty much did nothing IMO. I've also read a bit about fully ablative CO2 (it takes off the entire layer of skin vs fractional co2 which takes off a fraction of the skin) which I've read has a fairly high risk of hypopigmentation (permanant loss of pigment). Personally, I am hesitant to undergo that treatment.

Some fractional lasers: Fraxel:repair, deepFX

Best of luck.

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