Hey guys, I'm 27 and my nightmare started almost two years ago, I was using AHA's and Retin-A in an attempt to lighten some sun damage on my face (which I still have) when I realized I was doing a great deal of damage to my face. My pores became huge and stretched out on my cheeks, some are as big or bigger than the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen and have an irregular shape like someone stretched them out. I have the dreaded orange peel texture and large dents of varying depths in my face and broken capillaries, mostly on my nose but a few on my cheeks. I've never been too concerned with scarring as I had very little before, but this has consumed me. I don't know if anyone has done as much damage to their face with topicals as I have.

I've tried talking to talking to family and friends about it, they told me to get over it or that I had BDD, in hindsight I've been wearing lotion since this happened because my face was dry and it does minimize some of the damage, it's still noticeable but when my face dries out it looks significantly worse. Every day I wake up with an overwhelming sense of sadness, it just feels so hopeless.

The only thing that has kept me going is the belief that there is something out there that can help me, I've done endless amounts of research on scar treatments: Subcision, needling, peels, TCA cross, laser, punch excision, but I'm scared to pursue any of these treatments because harsh products are what got me into this mess in the first place. I have very little money so laser is off the table as is seeing any Dermatologists/Plastic Surgeons and even ablative lasers don't seem to do much for scarring anyway. My biggest hope has come from TCA peels and cross where people with scarring similar to mine have seen significant improvements but like I said, I'm afraid I will just make it worse.

Has anyone been through a similar situation, or had scarring like I've described and treated it successfully?