hi ll123-

i'm not sure how much our situations overlap, but i wanted to try and address your concern. for one, i am not asian but a light-skinned caucasian. i have some hypopigmented areas on both my face and my back that i believe are the result of acne scarring and sun exposure. a couple of years ago, i went to a derm to deal with my back, because i was going to be a bridesmaid in a wedding and would need to wear a strapless dress and felt really self-conscious about it. my doctor told me the same thing yours did -- that there wasn't much one could do about hypopigmentation. what he did say, is that there are things you can do to decrease the constrast between the light and dark areas, making the hypopigmentation less obvious.

i ended up gettting a series of chemical peels on my back. one of those was a jessner peel, which if i remember correctly combines glycolic acid, rescorcinal, and hydroquinone. they also had me "pretreat" my back with a hydroquinone cream (one from Obagi that combines glycolic acid and hydroquinone). well, the jessner worked wonders, seriously. i have never seen my back so even-toned, it was amazing.

now, you mentioned that you had "dark-tanned asian" skin. i don't know if you mean that you have dark skin because you are asian, or if you are actually tanned on top of your normal skin color. if you are tanned from the sun, you might want to consider backing off on that, and allowing your face to return to it's natural color, which may make your hypopigmented spots less apparent. if you are not tanned from the sun, then the only way to decrease the constrast between your hypopigmentation and your skin color would be to lighten your natural skin, which may not be such a great option!

i don't know if the treatments i received would be appropriate for asian skin or not, but maybe it's something you could investigate? i should mention that the jessner peel made my skin peel A LOT, which wasn't a huge deal since it was on my back (i could easily cover it up). but the face would be a different story!

good luck with it, and let us know what you find out!

hey everyone,

i did a vbeam and i think ipl laser treatment (the laser said YAG, i believe it is used for tatoo removal) more than a year ago. My acne is doing pretty well but all that is bugging me now is a few spots of hypo-pigmentation. I believe these were from the IPL laser because i have dark tanned asian skin. Do any of you know what i can do to try to even out my skin tone?

 

I heard such lasers as Relume but not many dermatologists offer it.

If it wasnt for these few spots of hypo-pigmented skin, I would be so satisfied with my progress. I went to a dermatologist near me and she said that there isnt much you can do about hypo-pigmentation. I really hope this is not true. Thanks.

 

For asian ppl, i would seriously recommend you think about the side effects before doing it. Vbeam i believe took away my red marks nicely, but doing the IPL was a huge mistake on my dermatologist's part. There are many treatments to help hyPER-pigmentation but hyPO-pigmentation is just a pain in the u know what haha.

hey laurza,

im acutally dark from the sun and i naturally have light asian skin. i definitely will investigate on the things you told me. im glad that you had so much success and i would like to say congrats! thanks for you advice, i appreciate it.

hey. i am a 25 year female and i had a severe acne breakout last year for which i took isotretinoin for 40 mg/day for almost 6 and half months (quite too much!). My acne were gone and my skin began to heal. Intitially it was red..and as it healed day by day..it left me with hypopigmentation marks on both side of my cheeks.

Initially i thought and my doctors also said its post inflammatory hypopigmentation and there is nothing to worry. he said the skin regains the pigment itself. However..as the time passed by..i started to have hypopigmentation marks on other areas where i did not even have acne before. and slowly and gradually.. my areas of white patch on both cheeks began to increase in size and whiteness and also i am having hypopigmentaion patches on other areas. I again checked with my doc. he said it is not vitiligo (thank god for that!). but what the hell it is? can it be a side effect of isoretinoin?. can any1 please please tell me if they are suffering from hypopigmentation marks on face or any other areas.

I alsowant to mention that i had completed my treatment long ago....but my hypopigmentaion started 2 months after i had stopped treatment and is continuing to get worse even when i ham not on isotretinoin. [Edited image out]. is there any1 else suffering from similar problem? please share!.

can isotretinoin make the skin extremely sensitive to sun and cause hypopigmentaion?. cant understand i had stopped it for almost 6 months b4..still its getting worse. please help.