UPDATE 2022-Mar-23:
I ended up visiting Dr Hazany again for a follow up and did another minor subcision and a laser this time. Here are the final results after all the treatments. Super happy with results! Haven't been too active since I've been busy with life now that this chapter of acne scarring is mostly over for me.
Original Post:
(First two pics are before, last pic is after)
Hi,
I have had severe acne since I was a teenager. After visits to multiple dermatologists, my acne was finally solved by a dermatologist who put me on a full course of accutane. However, I was left with severe atrophic boxcar, rolling and icepick type scarring by then. Most dermatologists do not treat acne scarring and even if they do they cannot effectively treat acne scarring so I came to this forum looking for a solution. A user named beautifulambition was active on this forum at that time and had a recommended list of doctors which included Dr. Davin Lim in Australia and Dr. Rullan in San Diego. Since I was in North America, I went to Dr. Rullan approximately 3.5 years ago to perform subcision. While he was cheap at the time and only charged me 300-400$ for the subcision, he actually made my scarring WORSE so I actually have no idea why he is still one of the most recommended doctors on this forum. However, seems like there are some users on here who have had good results with him (or so they say). Regardless, after that I basically stopped trying to treat my acne scars because I thought that most of the people on this forum (and otherwise) were shills for the doctors (turns out some were in fact shills) and I really could not find REAL evidence of anyone having successfully treated acne scars to the extent that I would want if I was paying for additional treatment.
As luck would have it, around 2 months ago I came across a Reddit post that showed an amazing subcision before after. As usual, I was skeptical given my previous experiences and the fact that lighting tricks can be used to significantly enhance before afters as far as acne scars are concerned (which is what many doctors are doing). However, I contacted the user and she verified that result was in fact real. I started researching the doctor she mentioned and came across his website. For the first time in my research, I found pictures as well as videographic evidence of amazing acne scar before afters. This combined with the fact that the user verified her experience helped me confirm that the doctor's results were actually real and not doctored images. I came to this forum to search for the doctor's name and could find nothing about him so I was utterly shocked as to why he is not recommended on this forum.
If there is one thing you can take from this story so far is that you should not trust anyone, including this post and do your own research before choosing a doctor. The best MARKETERS are NOT the best DOCTORS. For a doctor to successfully treat acne scarring, he/she has to have experience in not only dermatology but also surgery. As you can imagine, finding doctors with both these specializations is extremely hard. Add to that the fact that if there is a doctor with both these specializations, why would he spend his time treating acne scars? It doesn't pay as much as other specialized surgery.
Now, coming to the reason I made this post, I wanted to put Dr. Salar Hazany on the map for this community. The only reason I can think of that he is not as recommended on this forum is that he is relatively expensive and does not have as good marketing as some other doctors mentioned on this forum. The following are the treatments I did with him:
- Phenol Cross
- 3-layer subcision (deep, medium and superficial layers)
- Sculptra
Here is the website for those who want to find out more and see more before afters of the results he has given his patients: http://www.hazanyderm.com/
He is likely pricier than most other doctors treating acne scarring but I would highly recommend saving up if you don't have the money and going to him instead of getting ineffective treatments from other doctors like I did in the past that may even scar your face further or worse, disfigure you. You DO NOT want doctors without specialized knowledge and extensive qualifications touching your face with needles or lasers. It is a mistake I made in the past if I can help even one person here avoid it, I will feel like I have given back to the community.
Again, I am NOT a shill (check my post history to confirm the facts I have posted above), but please do your own research before choosing a doctor including the one I just recommended.
Attached to this post is a before after (first two pics are before, last pic is after) of my right cheek and as you can see I have a darker skin type so I am still hyperpigmented from the treatment but hyperpigmentation goes with time, scars do not. The difference in my atrophic scars is night and day as can be seen.
I am extremely happy with the treatments and he is worth every cent!
Happy to answer questions and best of luck to everyone trying to treat their acne scars! 
How many treatments you had with thedoctor and time interval between pre and post pictures.
interesting the treatments you had is the same treatments dr rullan provides. Unless he intentionally made your scars worse which shouldnt be the case. At the end of the day no one knows how you will heal but it could be generally estimated that if you are a certain age and healthy and belong to a certain enthnicity you are good. I personally think that you should atleast take 2 sessions from the doctor to know if it worked or not with atleast 3 months gap. Of course the first criteria is after successfully identifying what will work best for your scars. This will help the doctor gauge as sometimes the doctor prefers Safety in the first session unless he has extensive experience in treating a certain race, then only he goes mainstream.
1 hour ago, getsmart121 said:How many treatments you had with thedoctor and time interval between pre and post pictures.
interesting the treatments you had is the same treatments dr rullan provides. Unless he intentionally made your scars worse which shouldnt be the case. At the end of the day no one knows how you will heal but it could be generally estimated that if you are a certain age and healthy and belong to a certain enthnicity you are good. I personally think that you should atleast take 2 sessions from the doctor to know if it worked or not with atleast 3 months gap. Of course the first criteria is after successfully identifying what will work best for your scars. This will help the doctor gauge as sometimes the doctor prefers Safety in the first session unless he has extensive experience in treating a certain race, then only he goes mainstream.
I have only done ONE treatment of each procedurei mentioned. A good doctor shouldn't require more than one treatment, since once the needle is in for subcision, there is no reason they cannot break up all the scar tissue at once. My subcision lasted almost 3-4 hrs because I had extensive scarring on my face. Interval between pre/post is 1-1.5 months but I knew I had really good results within 2-3 days after the subcision itself after my swelling had gone down because I could see that majority of my scars had been untethered properly. Also same treatments performed by two different doctors can have very different results depending on their skill level.
This is a very good post. It's informative and eye-opening. While I both agree and disagree with your points, I'm glad that you wrote this for us to discuss.
I believe there are staff members of practices who are on this forum. I called this out in a post. But most of us are just regular people and patients who genuinely want to help people or are seeking help. I have always told people to look at things from different perspectives. For example, I've advocated getting multiple consultations from different doctors and then doing research (such as going on this forum) on your own. If you don't, you won't be prepared for the risks or you'll end up paying $10k for a Dr. Emer treatment.
Dr. Hazany has good reviews and his results look great on Instagram. That's actually wonderful as we can now discuss him as an option for some people. To be honest, I only saw his name come up a few times here so I didn't know much about him. Good to know. But we all know this: NO doctor has a perfect record. Dr. Hazany's results are similar to Dr. Lim's best results. But for the uninformed, Dr. Lim does have bad reviews and he has messed up some people's skin. But Dr. Lim only shows his best results. I'm guessing Dr. Hazany does the same. If he says that 1 in 5 patients see scar widening with TCA Cross, that means he doesn't get perfect results like every other doctor. But the people who suffered from worsening of scars don't say anything or leave reviews.If Dr. Hazany does a three-layer subcision procedure that takes hours, that's pretty impressive and we should discuss this with people here if they are looking for a doctor who is skilled in subcision.
I'm one of those who recommends Dr. Rullan. But I have no incentive to other than helping people who suffers from scarring. I don't get a kickback whatsoever. Is there a better doctor than Rullan? I hope so. We need more scar experts. I recommend him because I've gotten different treatments from him and I read other people's accounts. Did his subcision help my scars? No. But I probably didn't have the right scars to begin with - mine are mild and mostly boxcar scars. But I can attest to his subcision skills - he performed a treatment on me, I saw him do it on other people, and I buy into what he says when he describes what he's doing. I also got Phenol Cross multiple times. I saw no results the first four times. Why did I keep going to him? Because I was afraid of TCA Cross and its widening. I believe him when he says Phenol Cross is safer. However, I disagree with him when he says it doesn't widen the scar. I think it can but the percentage is much lower than TCA Cross'. I thought one one my scars got a little worse after Phenol. Maybe it was the slight persistent redness that made it worse. Don't know. I ended up having that scar lasered and it looks much better. I saw him recently and got another Cross session. It's been a little more than a week and the scab came off - looks like one of my scars plumped up a bit. I have to wait months to see if this sticks or if it's just swelling. I'm also fair in my recommendation though. I've regurgitated that Dr. Rullan isn't the best with fillers or lasers. Not saying he's bad but he's not known for that.
Why is Hazany doing Phenol Cross? He must have gotten this from Dr. Rullan. We all know that Dr. Rullan is known for Phenol Cross. Only a handful of doctors perform this in the US (maybe world). I know from talking to Dr. Rullan that he's been trying to teach and/or persuadedoctors to consider doing Phenol Cross. I'm guessing Hazany is one of those who were influenced because they're both in Southern California.
So if we're to be fair, I don't know how one could choose Hazany over Rullan for Cross if Hazany just started doing it and he charges more. For subcision, Rullan is also one of the leading experts who does this. His sessions aren't as long so maybe Hazany has the edge over him. Rullan doesn't do multi-layer subcision but I don't know any doctor who does. So maybe Hazany wins in this regard. But for the price??? Have at it. There are a number of people who are happy with Rullan's technique so take that for what it's worth. I don't know enough to comment on Hazany's technique but if he's going to charge that much, I'd hope to hear from more people about their results.
Good topic to discuss!
1 hour ago, downinthedms said:A good doctor shouldn't require more than one treatment, since once the needle is in for subcision, there is no reason they cannot break up all the scar tissue at once.
This is just not true.
To each their own, but there are far better scar revision specialists in California who dont charge an arm and a leg for better skin.
58 minutes ago, shei514 said:This is just not true.
To each their own, but there are far better scar revision specialists in California who dont charge an arm and a leg for better skin.
Scars can re-tether as far as I've read. To expect that it doesn't is just defying science. This is the reason people cup and use fillers.
Maybe there are people who only need one treatment. But we can't lump everybody in the same group. Usually, if your scars (mostly rolling) are worse, you will probably want to get multiple subcision sessions.
43 minutes ago, downinthedms said:Appreciate you sharing your journey and I respect your opinion.
Costs are a major factor in choosing a doctor. Not everybody has an unlimited bank account. Just because Dr. Hazany does really well with one patient, what are the chances that he will obtain the same result with another? It's possible! But many patients won't take that chance if he charges that much for subcision.
I had a doctor who would charge hundreds of dollars for each different area to be lasered. For example, if I wanted to get a spot on my cheek zappedonce, it would cost $300. Then, if I wanted my forehead zapped once, it would be another $300. This is so stupid. If I had my cheek zapped twice and my forehead not zapped at all, it would be $300 because it's in the same area. Seriously?!?!?! All the doctor needs to do is move the laser piece three inches and slap on another charge.
This is why unreasonable pricing will affect the doctor-patient relationship. Some people like me won't give in to the greed or stupid price models implemented byunscrupulous doctors.
35 minutes ago, JaysonC said:Glad you are satisfied with your treatment results. Can you please upload more after photos under harsh lighting so that we can see the results for ourselves? The photos you've uploaded are all different light and angle.
Pic 1 and 3 are pics that I have taken myself exactly under the same lighting.
9 minutes ago, Wish we could go back in time said:what is this exactly? is it any diff from normal canula subcision?
The superficial and medium layer subcisions are done using a cannula. The deep layer subcision is done using an instrument known as Taylor liberator and tumescent anaesthesia. This is one of the reason most dermatologists simply will not be able to treat deeper scars because it requires breaking tethers from the deeper layers of the skin.It requires surgical experienceandnot every dermatologist is likely to have the skills to perform it. All this info and more details are available on his website.
7 minutes ago, downinthedms said:The deep layer subcision is done using an instrument known as Taylor liberator and tumescent anaesthesia. This is one of the reason most dermatologists simply will not be able to treat deeper scars because it requires breaking tethers from the deeper layers of the skin.It requires surgical experienceandnot every dermatologist is likely to have the skills to perform it. All this info and more details are available on his website.
Bad news for us europeans then, idk anyone who does this other than Dr H in london who only has complaints from all his patients
1 minute ago, Wish we could go back in time said:Bad news for us europeans then, idk anyone who does this other than Dr H in london who only has complaints from all his patients
You are correct, there's very few doctors who can do this, I think I count count them on one hand. Its Dr. H in London, Dr. Mark Taylor in Utah who invented it and Dr. Salar Hazany in LA. Personally, I am not from LA either, I have been living here for almost 3months just for the purposes of the treatment.
42 minutes ago, downinthedms said:Pic 1 and 3 are pics that I have taken myself exactly under the same lighting.
Pic 3 is taken from different distance and different angle than pic 1.
I can 'improve' my scars by varying these things without any treatments.
I am very glad for you that you got results.
Just it would be nice to see those results on comparable before afters before considering the doctor.
4 minutes ago, JaysonC said:Pic 3 is taken from different distance and different angle than pic 1.
I can 'improve' my scars by varying these things without any treatments.
I am very glad for you that you got results.
Just it would be nice to see those results on comparable before afters before considering the doctor.
I actually appreciate your skepticism. Luckily, I'm not the first person for which the Dr. has produced results. Please have a look:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/scar-healing-institute-beverly-hills-4
http://www.hazanyderm.com/Los-Angeles-acne-scar-treatment
Videographic evidence below that helped convince me in making a decision to choose Dr. Hazany and team. There is not a single other doctor other than maybe Dr. H in London who has been able to produce this kind of evidence:
I saw the Yelp review all of them are in different lighting and the video is fine but the video is not high quality the photos are high quality with angled light ping in the video. So again this would look totally different.
On the subcision part can you explain why you need three layer subcision if you are doing a deep subcision then you dont need the other two, unless scarring differ in tethering levels.
I dont understand these doctors spend so much time on lightning, the go above and beyond to get the worst possible scars picture before the treatment and then try to take the best picture possible in the best lighting and angle. Have they put in this much research in scar revision they might have found something that works by now. But if these scars really improve from patient point of view then thats what matters.
1 hour ago, downinthedms said:You are certainly entitled to an opinion
Hey I just asked for better after photos since you are comfortable sharing photos in the first post but you are not pressured to oblige of course.
I do have my skepticism about the dr in question but am not blind and cannot deny legitimate results when I see them. Unfortunately as the user above said the quality of his comparative photos is very very low, which doesn't mean he cannot achieve results, but doesn't speak well of the dr either.
I am also wondering what necessitates 4 hours for a simple procedure as subcision which is usually done in a matter of 10-15 mins but ok
6 hours ago, Amanda Hall said:Rullan doesn't do multi-layer subcision but I don't know any doctor who does.
This isn't true. During my sessions with him, he explained multiple times that he does multi layer subcision with cannula.
52 minutes ago, JaysonC said:I do have my skepticism about the dr in question but am not blind and cannot deny legitimate results when I see them.
I agree with this. The original poster have different distance and angle from the first and third photo which can make the scar look better.
2 hours ago, gynoscar said:This isn't true. During my sessions with him, he explained multiple times that he does multi layer subcision with cannula.
I agree with this. The original poster have different distance and angle from the first and third photo which can make the scar look better.
Good to know this. All I know and have seen and have experienced myself is just a doctor shoving in a cannula/needle and going at it. Always learning on my end!
Why does Dr. Hazany take hours when Rullan only takes a fraction of the time? My scarring isn't that bad and he only spent about 10 minutes on subcision for me.
5 hours ago, JaysonC said:Pic 3 is taken from different distance and different angle than pic 1.
I can 'improve' my scars by varying these things without any treatments.
I am very glad for you that you got results.
Just it would be nice to see those results on comparable before afters before considering the doctor.
Lighting makes doctors look like experts. I'm sure Lim and Emer among hundreds and thousands of doctors employ these tactics.
Fillers can also do wonders but the skill level doesn't need to be as high as subcision. So we need a breakdown of what the doctor does.
13 minutes ago, Amanda Hall said:Good to know this. All I know and have seen and have experienced myself is just a doctor shoving in a cannula/needle and going at it. Always learning on my end!
Why does Dr. Hazany take hours when Rullan only takes a fraction of the time? My scarring isn't that bad and he only spent about 10 minutes on subcision for me.
Lighting makes doctors look like experts. I'm sure Lim and Emer among hundreds and thousands of doctors employ these tactics.
Fillers can also do wonders but the skill level doesn't need to be as high as subcision. So we need a breakdown of what the doctor does.
I appreciate everyone who shares their experience with the board and is brave enough to post photos, but am still curious about the real results. It would be nice to see comparable before after ( Like Shei's, they are very good) that can help show if this multi-layer sub and the doctor himself are worth considering. I believe the userhimself took the photos not the doctorthat's why I asked.
@getsmart121@JaysonCYou guys seem to have a very strong opinion without having been to either of the doctors. I really have no interest to convince you are anyone about which doctor to go to. I simply made this post to give back to the community and sharemy personal experience with both of them since I personally had procedures with both. If you or anyone feels that the results I have shown above, the results shown on his website and in the videos are lighting tricks then there's nothing more I can do really. Feel free to choose the doctoryou feel in the best for you, if that is Rullan or Lim, then so be it. I am getting nothing for this recommendation so it really does not make any difference to me on a personal level, which doctor you choose.