Hello all. Although this is my first post here, I have been lurking this forum for years and it has helped me a lot. I finally beat my acne (mostly) about 1.5 years ago. As an aside, low-carb/paleo diet was the best thing I ever did for my acne but that's another topic. Ever since I got my breakouts in control I have been working on my acne scars. After plenty of review on this website and others I decided to dermaroll my skin. I noticed a lot of people never come back to this forum to post their progress so there's a real lack of hard evidence on this website. This is my way of giving back to the community.

I have mild-moderate acne scars. I did not have huge craters, but they were noticeable and I wanted my skin to look like it did before I had acne. have been dermarolling for about 7 months. There is real progress. Have hope, everyone who suffers from scars. However, progress is very slow and you have to be very patient. I did not do everything perfect. I made some errors and I hope you can learn from them.

What did I do?

Dermaroll with 1.5 mm roller every 6 weeks

Rotate the following three topicals, use one each day: Retin-a, vitamin C, and copper peptides

Use 660 nm red LED light every night

Eat healthy with plenty of protein

Go to the gym 3-4 times a week.

This is what I have been doing for the past 7 months. However, I have not been using the scientific method to figure out what is helping the most. Maybe one of the topicals does nothing at all. Maybe the LED light does nothing at all. All that I know is that I have been doing all of these things and there has been progress. Definitely don't neglect nutrition and exercise. You need plenty of protein to build new skin, and exercise releases tons of growth factors that will help you recover faster. DO NOT SMOKE. Smoking inhibits cellular growth processes.

If you need dermarolling instructions, this is the best resource on the web: [removed]

Where did I get my stuff?

I ordered my dermaroller from Owndoc. They were very courteous and had excellent customer service. However, their roller had 2 needles that were loose and came out with some wiggling. Besides that, the roller was fine. It was not ideal, but I preferred ordering from a known name than buying a random Amazon roller. I recently got a Dr. Roller which is a bit sturdier but a lot more expensive. WHEN YOU BUY A NEW ROLLER ALWAYS CHECK EVERY NEEDLE TO MAKE SURE IT'S STRAIGHT. BENT NEEDLES WILL MESS UP YOUR FACE.

I got my vitamin C and copper peptides from Owndoc. They are fine. My retin-a was dermatologist prescribed.

I got my 660 nm red LED light from theledman. It was quite pricy for such a simple device. There may be less expensive options available. However, the bright side is that I have no complaints about the device.

Dermaroller was effective for:

Most acne scars. I have two examples here. One is a scar on my cheekbone that was originally caused by an accident, then some cystic acne flared up in the middle of it. Clearly there was some collagen built there.

(picture coming)

Another scar is a linear acne scar by my ear. It's clearly lighter and less depressed now.

(picture coming)

Dermaroller was mixed effectiveness for:

Smaller, icepick type scars. The problem with these scars is that the dermaroller is pretty much poking holes in a random distribution on your face. To fix these smaller deeper scars, you need to get the needle directly in the indentation. I highly suggest you individually needle these instead. It will work.

Dermaroller was not effective for:

Pigmented spots. I tried the dermaroller on a pigmented birthmark on my arm. Nothing changed. I tried it on some freckles/pigmentation on my face. Nothing changed.

(picture coming)

Dermaroller was bad for:

Hypertrophic scars. I tried the dermaroller on a hypertrophic spot on my thigh. It got bigger. Makes sense as this is a device designed to build collagen.

(picture coming)

What have I learned?

As you can see, over the course of 7 months there has been some progress. It is not amazing,but it is slow and gradual. Patience will be the most important thing here.

If you have milder acne scars like me, I highly suggest you individual needle rather than dermaroll. I have switched to individual needling now. Not that dermarolling wasn't good for me, but dermarolling tends to poke holes in a lot of perfectly fine skin which is unnecessary. If your scars aren't that bad target them individually.

If you have moderate or severe acne scars, dermarolling will be good for you, as it is the best way to cover a large area and hit all of your scars.

Don't touch your skin. There's been places where my constant poking and prodding has made the skin worse. It's getting better now fortunately, but you don't want to do more damage to your skin when acne has already done enough damage to it.

That's all I have from now. Please give me some time to upload the pictures. I hope this helps all of you suffering from acne scars and gives you hope that things can get better.