So, I guess I'll start with my history. I suffered from acne for about 8 yrs. It started when I was in high school and continued all throughout college. Finally, after wasting thousands of dollars on stupid products that NEVER worked, I got on accutane and my skin cleared up in 6 months. I get the occassional pimple here and there, but they're always small and go away pretty quick.
However, I now have a lot of pitted scarring (ice pick, boxcar, rolling, got them all) and some dark spots all over my face which is just... depressing. Last year, I spent ALOT of money trying to get rid of them (especially the pitted scars, they're just horrible). Seriously, I did laser treatments (6 treatments), dermabrasion (about 3 treatments), derma rolling (I only had one treatment of this, and I know you need to do a couple of times to see results, but I ran out of money by this point) and even had subcision on three of the bigger scars. Subcision slightly decreased the depth and size of my three scars, but they're still there. After all of this, I am now broke and still have scarring. At first, my scars seemed to plump up which got me really excited, but several months after treatment, the scars seemed to go back to the way they were. And even though my dermatologist says it's not possible, the dermarolling seemed to give me some new ice pick scars. She says not possible, but I know those scars weren't there before the procedure.
Anyway, I kind of gave up for a long time in getting rid of my scars. I tried to not let my scars ruin my self esteem and just be okay with them. But I finally decided to try again. From everything I read online, I decided to go with two main products: Green Cream Level 6 and Silkia Camellia Oil. I also got epidermx dermabrasion, but more so because of the deal I got when I bought it with Camellia Oil.
I'm going to stick with this regime for a year and see what happens. Realistically, I'm not expecting miracles where all my scarring will vanish. Moreso, I just want the scars I do have to look less noticeable and not so deep. I wanted to post my on going progress to help other people like me looking for a treatment to help with scarring. I'll post every month and let you know how it goes. I'm a firm believer in sharing knowledge and I want others suffering from the after effects of acne, like me, to know whether these treatments work or not.
Here's my first update:
3 week mark
This is what I've been doing:
Green Cream Level 6 every other night
Silkia Camellia oil every morning and every other night (every night I don't use Green Cream)
Kiehl's Vitamin C same time I use Silkia oil
I've only used epidermx twice randomly
I've never used a retinol product before, but I figured my skin was tough, so I skipped level 3 and jumped into 6. First time I used it, the next morning I was completely fine. However, the second day my skin turned bright red and was stinging. Then my skin started peeling like crazy. After 3 weeks, it's still doing the same thing, stinging redness, and lots of peeling. So I think I'm going to mix in a little bit of moisturizer to reduce the intensity until my skin adjusts.
I used epidermx twice, it does okay in helping with flaking caused by green cream, but I think any other exfoliant would do just as well.
The good news is my dark spots look a lot lighter (probably from all the peeling). My skin in general is still red, but besides the color it looks pretty great. A lot of my pores look smaller. I know a lot of people said they experienced an initial purging stage and broke out in the beginning of using any kind of retinoid product, but the only thing I've noticed on that front is 3 small pimples that were hardly noticeable and dissappeared within 2 days.
Can't really see too much of a difference in my pitted scarring yet, but I wasn't expecting to see any results this soon. I will say that my makeup is going on a lot smoother which is doing wonders in hiding a lot of my pitted scarring. Some of the really shallow ones seem to be slightly plumping up, but that could just be my imagination.
Continuously looking like I'm sunburnt sucks, but I'm going to work through it.
Anyways, I will continue with this regime and continuously update. I hope this helps anyone with the same problems that I have.
When you mention that you've had laser treatments and they weren't successful, I think it's because they were non-ablative. i.e. Fraxel restore. Which is in line with what you say in your post by having six treatments of them. I think that if you had had ablative (fractional ablative to be precise) laser treatments and six of them, then you might see a better result.
Also, you mention that you've had three sessions of dermabrasion. I think you mean microdermabrasion. Dermabrasion is a serious treatment that requires three months downtime. Microdermabrasion will not do anything for pitting. The most it can do is polish the skin and reduce discolouration.
I think the best way to address scars is to have ablative laser treatments.
Post a picture so that the users can see what kind of scarring you have so that they could offer recommendations. Also, whichever route you take, make sure to browse the forums to see what other users have done to address their scarring if it it similar to yours.
Hope to have helped.
7 Week Update
Hey, Alex. You're correct, I did mean microdermabrasion, sorry for the mix up. I had most of these procedures done in Korea(except the dermarolling) and I had trouble understanding the names of all the procedures they performed (korean is my second language), so sorry for the confusion. Regardless, despite everything they did always reassuring me it was the "best" treatment for pitted scarring available at the time, it was just a temporary fix and the scarring after improving seemed to go back to it's original state months after all the procedures. Again, spent A LOT of money for pretty much no lasting improvement and leaving me broke.
So I've been following the regime I stated above for about 7 weeks total now. I did change it up a little bc I've been peeling like crazy and still have some mild "sunburn" effects from the green cream (and I just started school up again, so beet red skin with flaking sucks), so I started applying silkia oil approx an hour after applying the green cream (still every other night) which has helped a lot with any burning resulting from the retinoid.
Just looking at my skin everyday, I didn't see any differences besides some of my dark spots left over from acne lightening up. Still no break outs from green cream like I was expecting from other people's "purging" experiences, so that was good.
But, I took a picture before I started this new regime and another one today to track progress. It may be my imagination, it may just be that my skin tone is evening out from all the peeling, but my pitted scars look minutely better. Still too early to really notice a difference, I'm still looking at a roughly 3 month mark to start noticing differences as many people report, but it's looking pretty promising so far.
Any questions, please let me know. Again, I am in NO WAY promoting any of these products. I am a sufferer of the unfortunate consequences of acne, and I know how much it absolutely SUCKS to finally get rid of acne only to be left with the even worse self-esteem killing acne scars. If I find a method that helps, I want to share with everyone else, so no one has to feel self-concious over reminders of their acne days. Again, I'll keep you guys posted.
I think it was a combination of fraxel and CO2. I would have "toning" done once every week (which left my skin slightly pink, and felt prickly, but they didnt give me any lidocaine for), but once every month they did some laser treatment that left scabbing for about a week and then it would fall off (and they did numb my skin beforehand whenever they did this procedure). Also, after I had all of this done in Korea, in America my dermatologist did use IPL (she applied some kind of vaseline like gel before doing this procedure), but she told me it was more for breaking up dark spots and it wouldn't do anything for my pit scars.
Either way, waste of money for me personally.
Sorry for the lack of updates, but I am still doing the green cream and Silkia. So here's my roughly 5 month update (can't remember the exact date I started this):
So I upgraded from Green Cream 6 to 9 about two weeks ago, but other than that I'm still using Green Cream and Silkia. I've sort of stopped using my Vitamin C serum because it was leaving my face all red and stingy (like a sunburn). But other than that, no changed to my skin regime, and here is what I'm seeing.
I stopped using Green Cream for about a week when I ran out of 6 and was waiting for 9, and I did break out during that week. Nothing major, just a few pimples, whiteheads, but having not had a breakout in a long time, I thought it was worth noting. But a couple of days after using level 9, my skin did its usual peel and all the pimples and whiteheads cleared out pretty quickly.
Up until I started using Level 9, I was fairly happy with the results of Green Cream, but not completely blown away. Yes it did get rid of a lot of dark spots, kept my skin relatively clear, but I really wasn't seeing too much being done for the general texture of my skin (like all my pitted scarring). Plus, I was still regulating how often to use it because on top of peeling a lot (which is what it's supposed to cause, but still not fun) my skin would sometimes get a mild chemical burn which left my skin all stinging and red (not fun).
I've been using Level 9 for about 3 weeks, and I'm really really loving this stuff. Maybe because my skin adjusted better, but I'm not getting any more of the chemical burns and all the skin shedding is happening very quickly. Instead of just being flaky for days at a time, I now have one or two days where my skin literally peels off (like in sheets. it's pretty crazy). But my skin has never looked better than it does now. A lot of the really rough looking spots are a lot softer, the color of my skin is very uniformed, and my skin just seems to.... glow. I am seriously impressed. I can see why a lot of people keep emphasizing patience with this product. I think I'm just now hitting the peak effectiveness of Green Cream, because I'm noticing pretty drastic changes whereas before it was hardly noticeable.
So far, I have noticed a change in my pitted scarring. It's hard to explain because I don't think they're filling in, but they're becoming a lot softer. I can honestly say it is a visible difference.
I'm going to most definitely continue with this Level 9, and I'm hoping my skin will continue to improve at the rate it's doing now.
And for anyone who tried Green Cream and ditched it, give it another try!!! Persistance and patience with this stuff definitely pays off.
I'll update again in a month