Treating Acne Scars

Acne scars are an awful memento of the having suffered pimples or even acne. They are unbearable because of their seeming permanence and their non-complimentary look. Normally speaking, acne scars are rather difficult to treat, but tissue regeneration is not impossible these days with all the amazing technological developments.

In general terms, by acne scarring, we mean the healed lesions caused by an acne breakout. While most scarring is temporary and will probably disappear naturally over time, scarring from the more severe forms of acne can be permanent.

Acne scarring can be prevented if the sufferer sees a doctor when it is in the incipient stage, especially if nodules or cysts accompany the red pustules on the skin's surface. If the breakouts of acne have marked your skin, you will have to approach the issue from a different perspective, which most of the time involves surgery.

Laser resurfacing is one possibility of removing the damaged skin areas and stimulating the natural regrowth of the tissue beneath. The procedure requires only local anaesthesia and can take between a few minutes and an hour depending on the extent of the damage.

Fractional laser therapy is one of the most recent methods of removing acne scarring. It involves surgical intervention at deep skin layers. The therapy is superior to both dermabrasion and laser resurfacing in terms of quality and involves a much reduced healing period. Nevertheless, fractional laser therapy remains within the reach of only those few fortunate people, who can afford it, since it is the most expensive acne treatment available so far.

It can be that additional sessions are required to improve the condition of the superficial layers of skin, before they can tackle the deep level treatment of the acne scarring. The doctor may inject collagen into the scars in order to raise the normal skin level or she/he may recommend micro-dermabrasion for the same reason. Trying to perform chemical peels for acne treatment at home is a bad policy given the risk of aggravating the condition by irritating the scars even further.

As for the types of acne scarring, they can be grouped by the way they look. Scars can result because of an increase of tissue or due to a loss of tissue They both have an adverse impact on the way the face looks. Specialists' evaluation of the nature of the scars is a very important factor in deciding on the adoption of one kind of treatment or the other.