Are Acne Scars Permanent?

Acne scars are an awful reminder of the having suffered pimples or even acne. They are intolerable because of their apparent 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 fantastic technological developments.

Generally speaking, when referring to acne scars, we are talking about the healed lesions resulting from an acne breakout. While most scarring is temporary and will probably disappear naturally over time, scars from the more severe forms of acne can be permanent.

Acne scarring may be avoided if the patient visits doctor when the acne scarring is in an incipient stage, particularly if nodules or cysts accompany the red pustules on the skin's surface. If the bouts of acne have scarred your skin, you will have to approach the problem from a different perspective, which usually means surgery.

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

Fractional laser therapy is one of the most recent methods of eliminating acne scars. It involves surgical intervention at deep skin layers. The therapy is better than 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 happen that other sessions are necessary to improve the condition of the superficial layers of skin, before they can start the deep level treatment of the acne scar. The doctor may inject collagen into the scarring in order to elevate the normal skin level or she/he may suggest micro-dermabrasion for the same reason. Trying to carry out chemical peels at home could be a bad policy because of the risk of aggravating the condition by irritating the scars even more.

As for the kinds of acne scars, they can be grouped by the way they look. Scarring 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 type of treatment or the other.