Acne scars:

Acne is the disease of sebaceous hair follicle. Each of the follicle on our skin has a tiny hair and multilobed sebaceous glands, these glands produce oily substance – sebum. In the normally functioning follicle sebum travels through the follicle out to the skin surface. But in the acne sebum gets trapped within the follicle.

Acne usually appears on the areas with the most numerous sebaceous glands: the face, neck, chest, shoulders and back and needs special skin care.

Acne is a very widespread skin problem. Almost all of the people suffer from it in some periods of their life, especially early in life. About 80% of all teenagers and 20% of adults suffer from acne, and many of these people have visible acne scars.

Practically, scars on our skin form at the place of injury after its repairing. On the acne type skin the injury of the skin is caused by inflammatory reaction of our skin to the sebum, bacteria and dead cells in clogged sebaceous follicles.

There are two kinds of acne scars: depressed areas or ice-pick scars and raised thickened areas or keloids. Until now the occurrence and incidence of acne scars is not understood well. Different people have the considerable variation in scarring which means that some people are more prone to scars than others.

Every case of acne is unique. For every person some skin care procedures and treatment methods can work perfectly or and some methods can be absolutely ineffective. The same is for acne scars treatment because acne affects our skin in a very different way and instance of acne and acne scarring is unique. Therefore, acne scars treatment is usually depends on the case.

Acne scars treatment methods:

There are six general methods of acne scars treatment:

• Dermabrasion
• Laser Resurfacing
• Chemical Peels
• Punch Techniques
• Subcision
• Augmentation

These methods can be used separately or in the combination. Dermabrasion, Laser Resurfacing and Chemical Peels are the methods concerned with the skin exfoliation process.

Augmentation is a method of injecting such substances as collagen or fat under the scar surface to help raise it, this procedure works well on the very deep scars, but the results of collagen and fat injuring are temporary and the procedure needs to be performed regularly.

Punch Excision is the method of surgical correction of acne scars which is used on deep scars. The procedure uses a punch biopsy tool with the diameters from 1.5 mm to 3.5 mm which matches to the size of the scar. The scar is excised with the punch under local anesthesia.

Subcision is the procedure of breaking the fibrous bands that cause rolling scars. The procedure is performed under local anesthesia .

Skin peels for acne scars treatment:

• Laser Treatment. Laser treatment is used to recontour the scar tissue and reduce skin redness around reduced acne lesions. More powerful lasers can be also used to peel off the dead skin cells from the skin surface in order to reduce the depth of deep scars.

• Dermabrasion. Dermabrasion is one of the most effective acne scars treatments. Uses a high-speed brush or fraise to remove the surface skin and alter the scar contour. The procedure also helps to remove superficial scars and to reduce the depth of deep scars. Microdermabrasion is a new form of dermabrasion which uses crystals or diamond covered microdermabrasion tips. It removes only surface cells and doesn’t create additional wounds.

• Chemical peels. Chemical peeling is a very effective treatment for acne scars. Different peels like AHA and BHA products are used to move away dead cells and stimulate collagen production. The lower strength peels can help to treat superficial scars and have a very short recovery time, more strong peels treat deep scars and require longer period of recovery. In contrast to laser peels and microdermabrasion, chemical peels can be used at home. Depending on the nature of the scarring and the type of the skin peels you choose, you can use it by yourself or go for a hospital administrated peel. It’s not recommended to use chemical peels when you have severe acne on you face.