I cleared my acne, and I'm now on .025% Tretinoin gel for anti-aging and improving atrophic acne scars.
I noticed that I've gotten a few new very, very small / minor atrophic scars on my face since starting Tretinoin. I didn't have acne in those areas so I'm wondering how I got those scars?
Is it because I sleep on my face at night - I tend to rub my face across the pillow lightly as I sleep throughout the night.
Or is it because the top layer of my skin is being removed revealing minor small scars that were already underneath?
Anyone have a similar experience?
This is what happened to me on tretinoin. It didn't cause scars but it caused swelling of my tissue that made the borders of my acne scars more apparent. It also messed up my skin tone causing a red tinge which made the scars look worse.
I will never touch it again. I stayed far away from it throughout my scar journey from 2014 to 2020 because we had quite a few user complaints here on acne.org. It has the same texture affect on some people as fractional co2, making it more wavy and it takes forever to recover if that happens. I started a retinol in 2019 and thought hey, tretinoin is better, so I picked it up and it was a mistake.
So do I think it causes scarring? No. I know some people do. Do I think it can irritate, swell, and cause redness which makes underlying scarring look worse? Yes. My skin never acclimated to use. I'm a year out from dropping it and still recovering from damage to tone and also a burning feeling that never went away. The swelling went down though and my texture is improved.
For some people it's a holy grail product. Just be careful and discontinue use early if you feel it's making things worse. It's a long recovery if you let it get too far. I never had these issues on an expensive retinol for acne prevention.
For what it's worth, I'm using .025% tretinoin for the last 5-6 months and have seen no real changes except I have noticed perhaps a more smooth surface if that makes sense. I'm only using it for 2 days a week (weekends) and also I wash it off after 5 hours. So it's not like I leave it on all night to absorb. But again no scarring or anything just very smooth texture to be honest at times which can make the scars look more prevalent at times though.
I know I spoke to Kay a while back about it so he's telling you the truth, he's kind of swore off it.
Also for the record, when I had slews of acne and icepicks developing in my youth I used retin A a lot with little benefit, but I didn't notice anything really adverse.
So it might just be certain people, or the way it's used or other things. But the rule is if you notice adverse effects stop taking it as there are always alternatives to anything.