Every person desires of a beautiful glowing skin but its only a few fortunate ones that achieve it. A beautiful skin is a glowing sign of a healthy body, however acne is a problem that seems to tarnish this with scars and spots. While most of people recover from acne without any permanent marks, some people are not so lucky and suffer from acne scars. Although some acne scars can be treated with topical medications, however most of the acne scars need surgery or skin resurfacing.
Mild Acne Scars
Post acne, it is common to see a red mark on skin. This red mark is actually a post inflammatory change that skin goes thru after the acne lesion has been healed. This is how the skin heals itself and this can take upto a year. If the skin is able to heal itself without getting infected at same place then this scar will go by itself, however if it does not heals up in a year's time it should be placed in the category of permanent scar.
Treatment of Mild Acne Scars
"Prevention is better than cure", this holds true for any type of acne scars, it would be much better to understand the causes that lead to acne skin condition and the correct way to treat such acne conditions. Since the mild acne scars in form of red marks is the procedure adopted by skin to heal itself, we can only supplement this healing process with proper medication or practice. Some of such practices/medication to treat mild acne scars are:
1) Avoid sun or put on an appropriate sunscreen. Sun rays are harmful to your skin,
they cause damage and slow down the healing process.
2) Don't touch or scratch your marks. If a scrab has developed then don't pull it
off.
3) Correct concentrations of Alpha-Hydroxy Acids & Beta-Hydroxy Acid have been
found useful in skin healing process.
4) Similary Retin-A, Avita, Renova also helps in skin healing process.
A word about Antioxidants
Its still not clear if anti-oxidants are really helpful in treating such post inflammatory changes and one should not really believe all the hype that surrounds skin healing thru use of antioxidiants.
Types of Acne Scars
We will use the acne scar classification system developed by Jacob et al, that not only helps in classification of the various types of scars but also in adopting the right acne scar treatment method. The various types of acne scars according to this classification are:
1) Icepick Acne Scars
These are the kind of scars that make the skin appear as if it has been punctured with a icepick. They penetrate deep into skin and hence are difficult to heal with procedures like laser resurfacing.
2) Boxcar Acne Scars
These kind of scars are characterized by round or oval depression with vertical edges. They are again characterized as shallow and deep based on the depth, the shallow acne scars can be treated with skin resurfacing, however deep scars require full thickness treatment methods.
3) Rolling Acne Scars
They appear when the subcutaneous tissue gets damaged. Normal skin resurfacing methods do not work in this case and these need special treatment.
Methods For Treatment of Acne Scars
Although there exists n number of methods to treat acne scars, listed below are few of such methods.
Dermal Fillers
Dermal Fillers are injected into acne scars to raise the surface of skin hence providing a smoother look. However this is not a permanent solution and may require more injections later on.
Punch Excision
This is a surgical procedure for treatment of deep scars where a surgical tool is used to make the skin edges are joined together using the tool. This gives rise to a new scar that fades away with time or can be subjected to further treatment.
Skin Graft Replacement
This procedure uses the same method as punch excision, however this time the skin edges are not joined together, rather the gap is grafted with skin taken from some other part of body usually the back of ears. It may also require another skin resurfacing procedure in some time due to difference in skin texture.
Punch Elevation
This method is particulary for box scars. The procedure is to excise the base of box scar and elevate it to the skin level and attach it with sutures or skin glue. It is considered better than skin graft replacement as it mitigates the risk of difference in skin texture.
Subcutaneous Incision
This is one of the best procedures for rolling scars. This is a surgical procedure again that is used to breaking up the subcutaeous bands that cause rolling acne scars.
Laser Resurfacing
This is perhaps the most popular treatment for most of the skin problems. This procedure
utilizes lasers types like Carbon Dioxide or Erbium. The concept is to burn the top layer of skin to the same level as acne scar. The burned skin naturally heals itself in some time producing a scar free skin. The main concern out here that determines the success of this procedure is the skin care after the operation.