I agree with @Sirius Lee. One subcision won't give any noticeable improvement when your scars are predominantly boxcars and icepicks. Subcision is good for tethered rolling and atrophic scars. For boxcars, you need to blur the scar edges with either acids or ablative lasers. Fillers can also help to raise the scar bed. As for icepicks, you need TCA cross, phenol cross, or punch excision.
If you can improve your boxcars, then your scars will look much better.
9 hours ago, Sirius Lee said:Well, you didn't exactly expect a huge improvement with only one round of subcision,did you?
That's not to say we don't feel you. We've all been there. Feeling down and even humiliated. Even after spending all this time and effort, let alone money, you see little to no improvement. I get it. But you need to be realistic. You need a plan.
First, you need to understand what subcision is. It's sole purpose is to sever the scar fibers and thus lift the scars that are held down. If there areno scar fibers, however, there won't be anything to lift. And that in itself can be a good thing.
Knowing that you have no tethering, let's take this up to the next level. You have a lot of boxcars with very defined border. I'mnot gonna sugarcoat it. They're about 7 (between 1 and 10).If you've been reading what I've written about boxcars, you would know that it's not the scar pit but the edge that accentuates the scar. From certain angles, your scars stand out more like a sore thumb, doesn't it? This is due to the light bouncing off these edges. Hence, first and foremost, you need to get rid of those edges
As I outlined in my previous reply (look above), you need TCA Cross. This will effectively flatten those edges over time. How much improvement can you expect? Who knows, itdepends on your healing cofactor. Everyone heals differently. But if you stick around long enough, I figure it would bring you down from 7 to at least 4 or 3. How many treatments in all? Again, I cannot say for sure, but you'll need to repeat the treatment every 3 months for at least (I'm guessing)2 years to see any noticeable improvement. You will see improvement, that I can guarantee. But you need grit and stamina. It ain't gonna happen overnight.
Hi Sirius Lee,
I honestly thank you for your response. I was feeling hopeless, directionless and cheated when posting those pictures. Thank you for addressing my concerns spot on. It REALLY helps!
9 hours ago, Jack817 said:I agree with @Sirius Lee. One subcision won't give any noticeable improvement when your scars are predominantly boxcars and icepicks. Subcision is good for tethered rolling and atrophic scars. For boxcars, you need to blur the scar edges with either acids or ablative lasers. Fillers can also help to raise the scar bed. As for icepicks, you need TCA cross, phenol cross, or punch excision.
If you can improve your boxcars, then your scars will look much better.
Thank you Jack! I agree with you too!
Ill keep everyone updated with my skin progress as the months go. Right now, my city is under a strict lockdown with all non-essential services banned so I will use this time to research my TCA CROSSoptions!
Hi everyone, I have updates. Since the last subcision, I have had two dermapen treatments (not useful) and 3 at-home TCA CROSS treatments. I am still recovering from the third TCA CROSS so I cannot tell you how much improvement I have seen overall (0-1%, max).
I have finally found a doctor near where I live that offers a combination package including 2 TCA CROSSes, 2 subcisions, 2 fillers and 4 laser sessions (erbium/CO2/fractora). For me, because of my skin tone, her decided to go with fractora. Im still debating taking this package (it's really pricey) but he is the only doctor nearby who offers such a package so...any advice you might have for me is valuable right now.
Tca cross or phenol cross is very slow process in my opinion lasers are far superior in sanding down the edges. You would do fully ablative erbium laser to sand the boxcar edges. I just had one session I was able to see the difference immediately. They looked much flatter due to edges being smoothed out. Do you know the laser is also used to extract a complete lesion just imagine that the doctor can keep ablatingthe edges of the boxcar till he sees it flattening out. They use a hand piece with full beam to do that. If you conservative you can go to to a doctor that uses this procedure and do one of the worse boxcar. Remember not the complete scar just the edges of boxcar.
see this video, go to duration 2:23