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Subcision And Fraxel Repair: The Good And The Bad

MemberMember
65
(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/05/2014 2:13 pm

So more than 2 and a half weeks ago I had subcision and fraxel repair together to rid myself of burn scars that I received six years ago from using a glycolic acid peel. The texture of those scars are now poreless compared to my surrounding skin and only on my right cheek is the one scar red at times while the two scars on my left cheek are fortunately the same skin colour as my normal skin tissue. I have had over 6 years of laser treatments (probably over 30 laser treatments with all kinds of lasers including several with Co2, Sciton Microlaser peel, IPL) so when people talk about having microswelling two to three weeks or even a month down the road that's not how my skin heals or reacts to lasers (I will only have microswelling for a week before everything goes back to normal) and I am a fast healer with thick oily skin and my skin seems to handle very aggressive treatments quite well. I am light pink right now and occasionally my skin goes pale again.

My burn scars were atrophic, as well as slightly hypertrophic in nature. They were deep enough to be labelled as severe and now they are in the shallow category (basically the borders of the burn scars are slightly showing but makeup is a lot easier now and I use dermaflage to blend in the borders) and the texture on the left cheek is improved and right cheek it is smoother but the left experienced the best results.

First my doctor did subcision on all my scars. He said they were slightly bound down but not too terribly and I had two dermatologists working on both cheeks for the subcision part. They used the Nokor needle. I experienced no bruising or swelling.

Next one doctor did my full cheeks fraxel repair (my forehead and nose and chin and eyes area are all smooth). The settings were 60 mj and at a density of 40 percent. I will insist on higher settings next time because my skin takes it very well and I am always told I have a very high pain tolerance, as I barely flinch when I get procedures done but it helped that they had used nerve blocking on me.

My conclusion is subcision combined with fraxel repair will work for most people at the highest settings. I had limited ice pick, rolling and boxcar scars that people talk of as I had wider burn crater scars (3 of them in total while surrounding skin had healthy skin) so it definitely worked in diminishing those and one looks like it's almost disappearing into my skin now. My doctor had to remove a lot of my healthy skin surrounding that damage in order to get the cheeks levelled out and he did multiple passes (probably 12 throughout four divided sections of my cheeks as I was trying to keep count lol)

On icepick scars it can make the scars more shallow but it'll still somewhat be there as I am aware those are harder to get rid of. It softened up my two rolling scars on my lower cheeks so with makeup you can't see any of this and can only see it very up close without it.

My only concern is if you are oily skinned you can form new enlarged pores and I did notice that on both my cheeks that I seem to have extra pores that sprouted out of nowhere after the Repair but I am aware that my collagen is still building and I am also aware that oily skinned people can experience this negative side effect after an invasive treatment like this.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask! Also if anyone has any advice on what I can do about the pores which are more like scarred and stretched pores that would be great! I have had one needling session done last year by a professional with a tattoo gun and that worked really well on a forehead line and making my scars look softer. I am considering getting more needling done once I am done with my second Fraxel repair and also thinking of getting TCA peels on those damaged pores.

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MemberMember
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(@aurevoir771)

Posted : 08/05/2014 2:51 pm

y only concern is if you are oily skinned you can form new enlarged pores and I did notice that on both my cheeks that I seem to have extra pores that sprouted out of nowhere after the Repair but I am aware that my collagen is still building and I am also aware that oily skinned people can experience this negative side effect after an invasive treatment like this.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask! Also if anyone has any advice on what I can do about the pores which are more like scarred and stretched pores that would be great! I have had one needling session done last year by a professional with a tattoo gun and that worked really well on a forehead line and making my scars look softer. I am considering getting more needling done once I am done with my second Fraxel repair and also thinking of getting TCA peels on those damaged pores.

First of all, thanks for sharing your story. I too have oily and thick skin, but I am an Asian and have dark toned skin. I have received Fraxel:repair, subcision, TCA treatments in the past, although not at the same time. I concur that Fraxel:repair makes more enlarged pores, which I am also suffering from. TCA peels are not the way to go when it comes to reducing pores. It actually did the opposite for me, so I strongly recommend against it if you have oily skin. I am not entirely sure if enlarged pores from laser treatments (or other harsh treatments) can be recovered or not. I have not read a single success story on reducing the enlarged pores from laser treatments. I believe this is because pores are not only enlarged, but also deepened due to intensity of the laser.

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MemberMember
65
(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/05/2014 3:06 pm

I remember when I used to have ice pick scars before my burns that lactic acid peels done regularly helped diminish pores and ice pick scars for me but again everyone's skin is different and we all heal and respond to things differently. This is the first time from a laser treatment I received additional pores. I will focus a lot on my diet and exercise next few months and monitor how my skin reacts. I will also consult with my dermatologist what can be done to prevent further pores from enlarging after my next Repair in February. I am thinking that needling enlarged and scarred pores could probably benefit the best from dry needling. I am super grateful that none of this shows with makeup though and I look 80 percent smooth with it on now and before I had looked awful.

http://www.biotouchcanada.com/portfolio/dryneedling.php

You can see that the pictures show people definitely got some promising results even on their enlarged and scarred pores (some after one treatment). I am not looking for invisible pores just a decrease in the look of the scarred or enlarged pores as they are relatively new so we may just be able to tackle them in their early stages.

I have gone to biotouch canada before but only once and will be visiting Lisa Lam more often once I am done with all the laser work. She had encouraged me to do laser as well because she said my scars were too deep and they needed to be more shallow for her to finish things off basically so I am super pleased with how well fraxel repair can get rid of severe scars when no other laser has done that for me in six years.

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MemberMember
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(@aurevoir771)

Posted : 08/05/2014 4:16 pm

That's great to see that enlarged pores can be shrunk back. One thing that concerns me the most is that damaged pores will never diminish. Even on the website you posted, although the pores shrank in size, they are still visible. I strongly believe that laser treatments cause permanent damage in pores. I have no visible pores or orange peel texture skin on the areas that never got treated with laser. I wonder how long it will take for doctors to realize this problem before stop recommending lasers to acne scar sufferers.

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MemberMember
65
(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/05/2014 5:16 pm

I think any improvement is better than no improvement and I am fine with pores as long as they are smaller and not irregular in shape or size which are the few I have now on my lower cheeks only and after laser and predominantly only on my right cheek (the side I sleep on). I don't think we should strive for poreless skin. That is a bit unrealistic. I think the results on the website are fantastic. I know I will never be 100 percent but even before my skin damage a decade ago I had smooth nice skin but with very large pores but I was happy nonetheless because I had no scars and fantastic skin texture. I see people with smooth nice skin all the time but large pores and they still look great so it doesn't bother me and I don't think most people notice pores as much as we notice our own :) I highly suggest you look into needling! I personally prefer only seeing professionals now for my skin issues so I would never do needling or anything at home after my chemical peel damage.

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MemberMember
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(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/13/2014 3:25 pm

Almost four weeks out and I am slowly returning to my natural skin tone (Type 3). So my pores are smaller on my upper cheeks. They have definitely shrunk in diameter and I am getting a lot of comments on how different I am looking. I do feel I experienced the best results on my left cheek than my right cheek where the settings and passes seemed more aggressive. Scars are much improved by the promised thirty percent (as I mentioned in an earlier post my healthy skin surrounding those scars needed to be removed as my scars are very wide and long due to a burn) What I like is that on my left cheek that scar tissue is looking more and more like normal tissue and blending in with the skin and with makeup I look 80 percent smooth and all I notice with makeup on is a lot of pores lol I will definitely be doing my next Repair in February :) If anyone has any questions feel free to ask!

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81
(@dudleydoright)

Posted : 08/14/2014 5:51 am

Glad to hear you are seeing results. It is true that the more lasers you have the shorter the recovery time.

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MemberMember
65
(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/15/2014 2:25 pm

I definitely intend on going up to 70 mj for my next one and maybe he can increase the density to 50 percent too lol I will see if I can convince him because I have extremely thick and stubborn skin for a girl! I didn't even feel anything when the settings were so high and they kept commenting on my exceptionally high pain tolerance lol

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MemberMember
65
(@charisma786)

Posted : 08/25/2014 1:19 pm

My pores still look really good compared to before and barely visible with makeup now and the extra pores I had received from the laser are slowly diminishing. I still feel my best side is my left side that had the most damage and my right side's improvement is still very good but no longer at the 30 percent and maybe more around 25 percent for that side and still 30 percent improvement for the left side. I still get oily skin towards the end of the day so my skin is now more combination like so for me Repair hasn't caused any issues there. My skin definitely looks more healthy and I am glowing more and my friends have been commenting on the pore reduction a lot.

It has been over 5 weeks since my repair and my skin colour is slowly returning to normal. I am a type 3.

I am sure people like seeing pictures but I am not comfortable posting any on a public forum. I do feel if you have shallow superficial scars you will get instant results with just one deep repair but if you have significant scarring like mine it'll take 2-4 repairs at least to fix that kind of damage. I will continue to combine my repair treatments with subcision to get the best results.

For those of you who had multiple repairs is six months enough of a gap before getting the next one? After my February one I want a third in August and I am hoping that'll be good enough and then to finish any things off with needling.

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4
(@anewhaven)

Posted : 01/04/2015 3:13 am

Hi charisma, what's your aftercare procedures? My next repair will be in April. This will be my second. Unfortunately doctor didn't want to do subcision on me because she said my scars look gone when stretched. However, I'm not quite happy because my scars are deep n wide.

 

Anyway this is going to be 2 months after the first repair. My skin takes a long time to recover back to original color. Nearly back to normal. I'm not seeing much results yet but somehow I believe Dudley n see how it goes for the second repair 3 months later.

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