By: Keith Londrie
Acne is a source of stress and embarrassment for many people. The anxiety a breakout can cause is often magnified by the threat of acne scars left behind after the skin clears. The breakout is bad enough without the idea of having a permanent mark left behind. In the effort to treat blemishes and clear skin, professionals have developed techniques for treating acne scars. This article briefly outlines six of them.
Dermabrasion is a treatment that has been around for a long time. This approach to treat acne scars involves using a brush that rotates at a high speed, removing the scarred area. Originally, people used sandpaper to slather off dead and damaged skin. Dermabrasion is most effective on shallow acne scars. The procedure takes less than an hour and each treatment costs around fifteen-hundred dollars.
Laser resurfacing is another approach used to treat shallow acne scars. This procedure costs twice as much as dermabrasion, but some argue that the results are superior. Laser resurfacing uses lasers to remove the damaged skin. This technique is very focused on the specific area and the treatment can take anywhere from a few minutes to a whole hour depending on the size of the area covered with acne scars.
Chemical peels are quite popular right now. This procedure is relatively inexpensive, costing about seven-hundred and fifty dollars per treatment. This resurfacing approach uses acids to remove the damaged skin. Chemical peels are only recommended for very mild acne scars and will not be effective on significant scarring.
Punch techniques remove severe acne scars. There are three basic punch techniques. The first involves removing the scar with a surgical hole-punch and replacing it with a skin graft. The second removes the scar and allows it to heal naturally and the third elevates the scar instead of removing it all together. Each punch costs about fifty dollars.
Like the third punch technique, subcision elevates the acne scars instead of removing them completely. The scarred skin is detached from the surrounding skin allowing adequate blood flow beneath it. This eventually makes the scarred area level with the rest of the skin surface. Prices vary for this procedure according to how much area needs to be addressed and how many treatments are necessary.
Deep acne scars can also be treated with augmentation, which fills the scarred area with collagen or fat. The major benefit of augmentation is there is no recovery time necessary. A major drawback is the results last for only a few months. The augmentation procedures cost between three-hundred and seven-hundred dollars, more if there are a lot of acne scars to address.
As more research is done, these six techniques will be improved. Recovery time will be lessened and the cost of the treatments will decline as they are mainstreamed. Perhaps one day, acne scars will be a thing of the past.
