Sounds very bright plan. If I were you i'd go for it. Seems very promising. He didn't push any laser procedure on you, that's a good sign. How much for everything? And where are you located?

I don't understand how subcision would be tougher on bunched rolling scars? Do you have any temple scarring?

I'm in Vancouver, Canada. I pre-paid $2100.00 for 3 RF-Needling sessions and for the skin graft it will be another $700.00. Does all this sound reasonable? This was my first ever visit with a derm so don't know how pricing usually works.

The nurse at the clinic was speaking to me about the rf needling procedure and told me that her cousin had really, really bad scarring and had 6 treatments done and now his skin looks so much better. She took a look at my skin and said I should have good improvement because her cousin's was way worse then mine. That was nice to hear but in the end she works at the clinic right so I don't know how much truth that holds.

I'm happy the derm didn't push lazers on me, in fact he actually drew out a diagram for me illustrating how lazers destroy the epidermis which can cause more damage especially in colored patients, so It was refreshing to hear his honesty. And he gave me a reasonable percentage of improvement and didn't promise my scars will go away completely.

To answer question, I do not have any temple scarring just on my cheeks. As for the subcision, he said it would be tougher because he would have to subcise below my entire cheek and since the scars are at different depths they may not release to the same level causing a waviness to my skin?

So far I've been hearing good things about RF needling, but I can't say the same for fat grafting. According to a lot of reviews, it gets reabsorbed fairly quickly (within 6 months) or it can look lumpy and unnatural. Maybe resurfacing the texture would help if that was the case, but I'm not too sure.

Is fat grafting the same as skin grafting?

According to Dr. Steven Weiner, on his blog regarding benefits of infini...

"Treating scars of all types but particularly acne scars. It has a great advantage over laser for darker skin types. Infini might turn out to be the go to device for scars over the Fraxel Dual 1550 because of deeper treatment levels (3.5mm vs 1.8mm of the Fraxel) and without the pigmentation risks."

This sounds promising since infini is a form of rf needling.

I still can't make up my mind on whether I should go ahead with the skin grafting or just forget it and get the 3 sessions of this rf needling on all my scars and hopefully that scar may respond as well :S

I know someone who had a large mole excised from her cheek. The mole was about the same size as a small bunch of acne scars. She now has a faint white line that looks a lot better than a bunch of pits. I'm going to ask a PS if he can do the same thing for a group of scars on my right cheek. Not all of them, just 3 or 4 that are close together. I'm hoping he can and that when he stitches the skin together it will pull the remaining scars tight and even them out. Excision is the only guaranteed way of permanently removing acne scars.

I'm unclear as to whether he is referring to dermal grafting or punch grafting.

If it's dermal grafting, they cut skin from behind the ear, strip off the epidermis and implant only the dermis underneath the scar to fill it. If it's punch grafting, they use a circular punch and cut out the scar entirely and use the same punch to get a graft from behind the ear and then put that into the hole, then stitch it in place. Do you know which one it is? I'm surprised at his answer to subcision.

Hey guys,

I had a consult today with a derm and after examining my skin, he said the the good news is that my scars are primarily rolling with some boxcars so they are "easier" to treat and recommended radiofrequency (rf) needling (intracel?) And said I could expect to see 60-70% improvement however, one of my boxcar scars has a scar within a scar, which he said meant there was fibrous scar tissue present, and would not improve much from this treatment.

I asked him about subcision & excision route, he said since my scars are not isolated and are bunched together subcision will be tougher to do. As for excision, he was concerned about the linear scar (which I thought would be better then the scar I have now). He said an option for that scar could be taking some skin from my ear and stitching it on to that scar. He recommended If I do choose to go down that route I should get that done first and then 3 months later get the rf needling treatments (he recommended 3 sessions of those) so it will help to smooth & blend out the suture marks and any textural differences.

I already pre-paid for the rf needling treatments because they had a promotion so I save a lot but won't be able to actually book in for any treatments until September due to my practicum.

I would love any input on these procedures. I've already been doing needling is rf needling really that different in results? The doctor said that It was similar to laser but much safer. Anybody got any insight on skin grafting? Still kinda on the fence for that one.

Hello PineappleXpress! Please look at my quote in the other thread. 🙂

In my opinion I would try to get some before-after pictures on the certain procedure process and the contact information to the patient (I've seen that this may be offered in some clinics) and maybe you can get the contact info so you can speak freely how much it really helped the patient, if it was worth it etc.

I still recommend you to keep dermastamping/rolling + LED + Good Moisturizer but it's your choice 🙂

@ Julian

Hey I am so, so sorry for the delayed response. I was having issues with my internet on my phone and my laptop was basically dead. I have been meaning to thank you for your wonderful, kind and encouraging words. I did read your other post and I've decided to not go through with the surgery/skin graft thing. Like you said I'm just going to stick with needling. I did book in for the rf needling though because it's essentially just needling but on steroids lol. Hopefully it'll do something.

Anyways, enough about me how's your needling been coming along. Are you noticing any changes? I think you must be at like 8 or 9th session by now.

I haven't been on here in a while, but I am thinking of trying fractora, which is rf needling. I have a consult on Wednesday and will talk to them about ematrix or fractora. I got the feeling from the lady on the phone that they are pushing ematrix over fractora for scars. Maybe they are just not comfortable with very high settings on the fractora machine. After doing a lot of research it seem the two are very similar which is somewhat disappointing. It is disappointing because there are not great reviews on here for ematrix. Both mechanisms try to bypass the epidermal layer and just concentrate on providing rf energy deeper into the skin. there is only about 5% ablation of the skin. It is more to stimulate your own collagen. I can see why some people don't respond well, because some people really need ablation to the top layers to smooth out the appearance. I have also read of some people receiving damage to their skin through both treatments. If anyone has any advice to give me I would appreciate it! I do have a newer scar and I thought maybe zapping it with some rf energy might help it. The scar tissue is still a bit lumpy and pink.

@ Julian

Hey I am so, so sorry for the delayed response. I was having issues with my internet on my phone and my laptop was basically dead. I have been meaning to thank you for your wonderful, kind and encouraging words. I did read your other post and I've decided to not go through with the surgery/skin graft thing. Like you said I'm just going to stick with needling. I did book in for the rf needling though because it's essentially just needling but on steroids lol. Hopefully it'll do something.

Anyways, enough about me how's your needling been coming along. Are you noticing any changes? I think you must be at like 8 or 9th session by now.

Hey Pineapple!

Nice to hear from you. No problem at all 🙂

Alright! Let me hear from you how it goes with your countinued needling and the RF needling sounds very interesting as well. When are you planning to do it?

Hm, I think my average is like once every 6th-7th week so I would think I have made at least 5 whole sessions, could be more. But yeah, half a year and I can only recommend it. Also I would like to give a hint about single needling; I tried it but weird enough one of my scar got deeper by it.. I've must been using it wrong or something but I'll keep just using the dermastamp in the future. It feels like it works much better now with the LED and good moisturising 🙂