I had a giant acne scar excised about 6 months ago by some guy on Staten Island. Unfortunately, he did not excise the entire thing, and I'm left with a scar that is half excised and half original scar. As a result, I'm able to see an actual side by side comparison of excision scars vs acne scars, so I thought this would be a cool thing.
This is under some pretty harsh lighting, under low lighting it looks something like this:
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Like nothing. There is nothing there. Other than some pigmentation visible that could probably be treated or easily covered up, I really don't consider the result of the excision to be a scar (though it is). The first two pictures are close up, and from a distance the redness seems to be much smaller. The excision scar also does not have an irregular shape as the original boxcar.
I've subcised what's left of the boxcar since then just out of plain curiosity and found that I probably don't regret the excision, the box car was just too big. While the sub may have lowered the depth, it doesn't really blend it in with the surrounding skin, and because of its shape it would have still stuck out.
Again, I don't know why people are scared of excision, unless you find the result of this to be drastically bad. I don't think this is something that should be done for every scar, subcision WOULD be a better option for other boxcars, this one was just huge and kind of an obvious exception.
I wanted to know if those folks against surgery thought the result of this was actually bad, or changed your mind about it. I'm no doctor and know there are other skin types that may not have the same result, but I guess you could use this as kind of a reference point. It is not a cure or miracle, just a few stitches.
Great results thanks for sharing. Would you mind posting who yourdoctorwas?
I absolutely agree that excision is probably one of the best acne scar treatments we have right now. Unfortunately, Drs and people on this forum love to spread the message that you need multiple treatments over several years to get 20% improvement. Obviously a doctor would make far less money if they only charged a person a few hundred dollars to stitch up some scars as opposed to them coming back every three months for fillers or subcision.
It was some random PS on Staten Island whose name I cant find right now but I wouldnt recommend. Cost was $750 for one excision, he didnt even cut out the whole thing, and didnt seem like he knew much about acne scars as he pushed for energy devices whileI asked for an excision.While the doctor wasnt good, the procedure was, andother doctors may have been able to do abetter job and perhaps made the resulting excision scar better (if thats possible)
Thank you so much for sharing your experience @cherrysodax I wholeheartedly agree with you that it's quite lucky things did not go wrong, and perhaps your a great healer. I agree I would not recommend this procedure to most people.
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Excision:
1) Excision on one spot is different than getting it done all over your face. One area is easier to deal with than many.
2) This solely relies on the ability of the patient to heal, don't think about it if your a poor healer, scar easily, sensitive, or get hypertrophic scarring.
3) The skill of the Dr is extremely important. Do not trust any Dr to do this. They will simply cut a chunk out of your face and stitch. Goto a plastic surgeon for this (more experience and better closures).
4) Any time we cut it makes a new scar (Seal the Singer), the thinking is the scar will be less than the existing scar. This is not always the case if one has to cut a bigger area to make the closure.
5) Laser is very much required as one has a new scar that needs resurfacing after, with hyperpigmentation (may turn white, brown, or - PIE (red)).
6) Our face makes movements as such there are nightmare areas to do this. Botox
7) The older you are the harder it is to heal.
8) The best excision is the smallest size, if it's a large scar, it can be terrible.
9) Any General Derm will do a punch biopsy, as such people often scar, dimple, and heal poorly when they are sending samples to pathology.
10) This is a last ditch treatment, ... meaning you tried everything else and nothing worked (often a poor Dr who did the procedures). As such your willing to take a risk, I would do a text on one spot (or a few) before proceeding, research the Dr and how experienced they are.
After a Excision
This image was shared to show you a Dermatologist who was experimenting with scar revision and excision.
