Acne Skin Care Blog

Acne scar treatments have advanced in recent years so that individuals with acne scars have more options available to them than in the past. But, these methods are still painful in most cases and also are quite expensive; requiring multiple treatments and recovery time which means the individual is not able to work.

In addition, most of the treatments are not covered under insurance plans so that the individual is forced to pay for the entire treatment out of pocket, something that many individuals are unable or unwilling to do.

The best acne scar treatment is to prevent the scarring in the first place by not picking or squeezing the acne when it has a whitehead on it, but rather waiting for the skin to naturally heal itself.

What to Expect

Acne scar treatments that seem to be effective for light scarring on the face and neck are dermabrasion and laser resurfacing. Although these are effective for light scarring, the cost is not light at all, running fifteen hundred dollars for each treatment of dermabrasion and three thousand dollars for each laser resurfacing treatment.

Since more than one treatment is often needed with each of these techniques to get the desired results, a person can spend up to ten thousand dollars on treatments, which is not possible for many individuals.

In addition, the recovery time for each of these acne scar treatments is about two weeks, so the individual will have to take that time off of work so that the scabs and swelling of the face can heal before getting back to the office.

For deeper scars, there are acne scar surgeries such as punch treatments and subcision, as well as injections such as augmentation which seem to be effective for removing deep pock marks in the skin.

Each of these also takes significant time to heal, with augmentation being the quickest for healing time. Punch techniques and subcision are really minor surgical procedures that require that the scar either be cut out or loosened from the base tissue so that blood and other tissue can grow below it and fill in the depression so that the scar comes up to the level of the other skin.

These techniques are often used in conjunction with the dermabrasion and laser resurfacing so that the deeper acne scars are treated first and then the milder scarring is smoothed through the other techniques. Augmentation injects collagen into the depressions so that the scar is brought to the surface of the skin.

This must be repeated about every three to six months so it is less painful but needs repeating for life.