Hi everyone,
I've had acne for about 2-3 years now and after countless chemical peels, mandelic serum and benzoyl peroxide spot treatments, blue light treatments, and hydration. I've finally knocked out a gigantic portion of my acne. However, it left behind a lot of red spots (they're flat so they're not zits) on my face and nothing is working on them to get rid of them.
This is probably one of its worse states but it shows my problem the most accurately. Yes there are one or two dots of cystic acne in there but almost all of it is flat. I was thinking that it was a severe form of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation but I need an expert to confirm it. My mother tells me it's acne and my aesthetician tells me it was just scarring "in general". What is it exactly? And how can I treat it as soon as possible? We are considering a laser resurfacing but I'm not sure if it will actually help or not.
Hi dude!
Looks like a mixture of hyperpigmentation and PIE (check out the scarring forum, lots of info in there about PIE).
I had a lot of this as well from about 2 years ago when I had a horrible breakout that lasted about 6 months straight. Fast forward to now and it's all basically gone (apart from new acne I get now and again).
I'm sure it's not what u want to hear but I was just patient and it healed up well on its own. I have been taking zinc vitamins for a couple of years now so not sure if that helped with it as well.
All the best and be patient!
On 12/9/2019 at 5:33 PM, jPablo said:Hi dude!
Looks like a mixture of hyperpigmentation and PIE (check out the scarring forum, lots of info in there about PIE).
I had a lot of this as well from about 2 years ago when I had a horrible breakout that lasted about 6 months straight. Fast forward to now and it's all basically gone (apart from new acne I get now and again).
I'm sure it's not what u want to hear but I was just patient and it healed up well on its own. I have been taking zinc vitamins for a couple of years now so not sure if that helped with it as well.
All the best and be patient!
Thank you so much for the response! I didn't even know PIE existed until now, we have a scheduled laser resurfacing appointment which should hopefully help with the hyperpigmentation. I've also noticed that hydrating my skin and using a weekly oatmeal-based face mask has been a huge plus for it too. I'll be patient with the PIE but I will do the best I can to heal the rest.
On 12/14/2019 at 10:29 PM, VoltX said:Thank you so much for the response! I didn't even know PIE existed until now, we have a scheduled laser resurfacing appointment which should hopefully help with the hyperpigmentation. I've also noticed that hydrating my skin and using a weekly oatmeal-based face mask has been a huge plus for it too. I'll be patient with the PIE but I will do the best I can to heal the rest.
Try find a moisturiser that has an ingredient called niacinamide in it. This is a lightening agent which is meant to help with the redness of PIE.