Hi Guys,
My name is jake and I'm new to Acne.org.
Basically, my story is like everyone else's. I had great skin all of high school and then one day in college BAM. I broke out with the worst cystic acne of my life. Long story short, I took Accutane for 7 months which helped clear my acne tremendously. But after I got off it, the cysts started to come back. Now I am currently eating a dairy-free diet and use Tazorac cream (.01) and I rarely break out anymore. Now all I have to deal with is my terrible scars and redness. I've done everything for these damn scars and they don't seem to be improving at all.
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I don't see terrible scars. Maybe it's the pictures. Shadows from the scars using a flashlight are the best way to show them. Your skin looks pretty smooth. So I don't even know the type of scars I am correcting or where these scars are (not in picture). Your skin look perfect, justred.
You get Vbeam vascular (veins and pigment only) laser or Quadrostar pro for the red. IPL can take 9 treatments (more than laser). All that CO2 = red, red, red. You cannot treat reds fully till your done with laser that makes your skin constantly heal.
Microneedling will do nothing by itself, you must do "stronger" peels.Minor peels will do nothing, you have to do stronger spot peels and microneedling http://derminator.com alternating monthly for a year or two. Once is never enough, even 3 times is not enough. You can do this at home cheap, not worth thousands.
If you did filler and subcision and it did very little ... your expectations are way to high of photoshopped unreal skin (your skin in the pics looks better than most people on this site fyi) or the person was bad at subcision.
"Currently doing Fractional Co2 Laser (I've done it twice and plan on doing it every month for about 5 months)."
Ok, goodluck with your laser, we do not advocate that here, it can cause fat loss.
I don't know what I am helping besides red, and I help very severe scars.
Thank you for your feedback @beautifulambition , I agree, the photos do not really show my scars to their full depth. I have one raised hard scar (about the size of a quarter) on my right cheek. That's really my worse scar. On my left cheek I have smaller but deeper scars. I've done everything to that hard scar on my right cheek, my dermatologist even injected a steroid into it a few weeks ago, barely any improvement. Do you have any recommendations? And as far as redness, how many Vbeam treatments do you think I will need until the redness vanishes? I've heard redness is much easier to get rid of than scars.
Thank you
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@cysticacnesucks1Again your don't at this point from the pictures and after all those treatments have many signs of scars. I see one tethered spot which could be taken care of with subcicion with filler,... if you say it's doing nothing (a) it's not sub, or (b) put more filler!The raised acne scar you can spot TCA peel to soften the transition of the skin, your doctor is already doing CO2 so he or she can use that.
Yes Vascular laser will work, but not while your doing all those treatments, creating the red (co2, etc....). Vbeam / Quadrostar Pro ... Depends on how you heal typically 3 sessions at extremely high setting and 6 at low settings.
"On my left cheek I have smaller but deeper scars."I don't see any other scars.
Doing too many things, does not let our skin heal, and it can lead to further scars and complications. These treatments soften the scars.
Honestly if most people on here had your skin we would be extremely happy and feel "healed."