Many people recover from acne without any permanent scaring, disfiguring acne scars does, however affect a proportion of acne sufferers. Here is some information on how to treat acne scars.

Although there are a number of medications and natural treatments for mild acne scaring, most acne scars will require a combination of skin resurfacing and surgical treatments. It can take up to 12 months for the redness of the natural skin healing process to fade; this is not scaring but part of the natural healing process for mild acne treatment. Skin will normally heal completely in this area if no further acne develops.

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Scars or redness present after 12 months can be thought of as permanent scars. Prevention is always the best way to treat acne scars, an understanding of acne prevention techniques is the best way to avoid acne scars.

Good skin protection from UV damage is essential especially when the skin is trying to recover from acne symptoms. The suns UV rays will aggravate damaged skin and slow down the healing process. Never squash pimples or pick at scabs, part of the bodies natural healing process involves scabs and picking at them will interfere with this healing a remodelling process. There is an acne scar classification system to help in determining how to treat acne scars with the appropriate treatment. The classifications are; ice pick, rolling and boxcar these are determined by the appearance of the scar.

Ice pick

Sharp, narrow scars as if made by an ice pick, usually deep into the subcutaneous layer and less than 2 mm in width. These scars are normally too deep to be treated with laser r skin resurfacing techniques.

Boxcar

Boxcar scars have vertical sharp edges with oval depressions that do no taper towards bottom. Boxcar scars can usually be treated with skin resurfacing techniques if less than .5 mm deep

Full-thickness techniques are necessary for scars >.5 mm Rolling scars; the skin shows an undulating or rolling appearance resurfacing techniques will not work here and the subcutaneous fibrous bands need to be broken up.

A summary of effective acne treatments procedures is;

Dermal fillers

This involves the injection of fillers such as fat, collagen etc into the skin. These treatments are not permanent and therefore have to be repeated as necessary.

Punch Excision

This involves punching a hole in the skin, size to match the scar, this is performed under local aesthetic, and the edges are sutured together. The new scar should eventually fade and may not now be visible, or may be reduced to such a level as to respond to skin resurfacing.

Punch Extraction with Skin graft

This is similar to skin punch but with skin graft instead of suturing the edges together. This technique may be followed up later with resurfacing techniques to remove colour and texture differences.

Punch elevation

Here the walls of the boxcar scar are left and the base level is raised and attached with sutures, this avoids some of the risk of colour and texture changes associated with grafts.

Subcutaneous Incision

Subcutaneous incision is used for rolling scars to break up the subcutaneous layer, performed under local anaesthetic and involves a needle moved parallel to the skin surface.

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