Laser Acne Treatment - How To Get Rid Of Acne

Is laser acne treatment the best acne treatment for you? Are you one of the many people who wonder how to get rid of acne but who can’t seem to get any relief from severe, chronic acne? Has your dermatologist not been able to help you? Have the latest products you’ve seen advertised on TV and in magazines not been able to “cure ” your acne? Then laser acne treatments might be just the thing you’re looking for.

How does laser acne treatment work? Well, to put it in the simplest terms possible, laser treatment for acne uses cutting edge laser technology to basically vaporize your acne. Does acne laser skin treatment work? While it is one of the best acne treatments today it is not 100% effective for all people, and while a few need more than one acne scar laser treatment to see results, for most people one acne blemish laser treatment completely gets rid of their acne.

How long does the acne scar laser treatment procedure take? Well, in most cases it takes just about an hour. The laser acne treatment procedure is performed right in your dermatologist’s office and no hospitalization is involved. In fact, there is only a minimal amount of pain and discomfort associated with laser scar removal and in most cases you can resume your normal activities right away.

Don’t make the mistake of not considering laser acne treatment because someone you know may have had a bad experience with it. Results of acne laser skin treatment vary from person to person and from case to case. Just because one person did not experience the desired results with laser treatment for acne doesn’t mean you won’t. It is more than likely that your acne scars will be able to be completely removed and that your laser acne treatment will achieve excellent results.

In the end the decision whether or not to undergo laser acne treatment will have to be made in consultation with your doctor. Laser acne treatments are not usually the first choice when it comes to acne treatment, so your doctor can advise you on other options that you have and help you decide on the best acne treatment.

Acne Scar Treatment

The first step in treating acne scars is to stop the formation of new acne. From there, acne scar treatments should be customized depending on the characteristics of your skin and scars.

• For a few small, shallow acne scars, less aggressive treatment that involves concealing your acne scars with an injectable filler may be in order.


• A large number of deep acne scars is more likely to require surgical excision combined with a series of dermabrasion treatments or aggressive laser peels.

Before deciding on an acne scar treatment, consult a board certified doctor to determine what's best for your specific situation and set realistic expectations for what you can achieve. In many cases, acne scars cannot be completely removed, only improved.

What is Fraxel?

Fraxel involves the use of the latest in skin care laser technology to purposefully stimulate the body’s own restorative processes by controlled damage done to the skin. Reaching deep into the skin’s second layer, the dermis, Fraxel helps to stimulate the body’s restorative abilities and thus new collagen and skin is formed. Older skin that is damaged is removed from beneath the epidermal layer, the outermost area of skin. The process of controlled skin damage in small areas which are separated by healthy skin allows for minimal healing time and highly effective skin rejuvenation.

How to get rid of acne scars

For moderate to deep acne scarring:

Laser treatment

• CO2 laser - Includes Fraxel Repair, Active FX and Deep FX, Juvia and others; usually requires one treatment with significant downtime
• Erbium laser - Includes Fraxel Restore, ProFractional and others; usually performed in a series with minimal downtime

Dermabrasion - Small, rapidly spinning wheel with a roughened surface similar to fine-grained sandpaper is used to remove the upper layers of your skin

Surgery

• Subcision - Used for rolling acne scars, to break up fibrous bands of tissue under the skin
• Punch excision - Small, sharp punch instrument is used to cut out severe boxcar or icepick acne scars; surrounding skin is sutured together
• Punch graft - Same as punch excision, but instead of suturing surrounding skin together after the acne scar is excised, skin is taken from another body area and grafted to the former location of the scar

For mild to moderate acne scarring:

Injectable fillers used to fill in acne scar depressions include:

• Restylane
• Juvederm
• Collagen injections
• Fat injections

Chemical peels

• TCA peel - Performed at a variety of depths depending on acne scar severity
• Salicylic peel - Sometimes treatments combine with microdermabrasion, e.g. SilkPeel

Fraxel Treatment

Prior to your Fraxel treatment your physician will let you know specifically what you need to do prior to treatment. Generally fraxel before and after photos will be taken so you may gauge your skin's improvement after your series of treatments have completed. An anesthetic cream will applied to the skin in the treatment area and left on between 45 minutes to an hour. Eye coverings are applied to protect the eyes from the laser light. Depending on the treatment area, the session takes about 15 – 25 minutes. During the treatment cold air will be blown on the area to help reduce the discomfort. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, most patients rate the pain at a 4. Following treatment most patients feel a slight heat sensation, similar to a sunburn, for up to 90 minutes.

You should be given written instructions on how to take care of your skin by your doctor, but usually using cool compresses intermittently, sleeping with your head slightly elevated for the next day helps reduce the swelling. You may apply make up and sunscreen after 1 – 4 days. Most people are ready to go back to work in 2 – 7 days.

Fraxel Results

The advantage of treating the skin this way is that there is less downtime and risk of adverse events while obtaining a significant improvement. This process is specifically designed to give rise to smoother, clearer skin with minimal risks and down time. The other advantage of this approach is that, unlike the ablative resurfacing procedures, it is safe enough to treat areas off the face such as the neck, chest and hands.

Milder Fraxel Treatment:

20 – 40 % improvement in fine lines and wrinkles

Improvement in overall texture and firmness

Decrease in age spotting and discoloration

20 – 40 % improvement in acne scars

More Aggressive Fraxel Treatment:

30 – 70 % improvement in fine lines and wrinkles

Improvement in overall texture and firmness

Decrease in age spotting and discoloration

30 – 70 % improvement in acne scars

Fraxel Side Effects

The reported risks of long-term side effects or scarring are less than 1%. The scarring that may occur would be a discoloration of the skin or texture change, a bump or depression. In rare cases the development of an infection or flair of a cold sore that could lead to prolonged healing time and scarring is possible. Occasionally, a small blister or open area can develop which can be treated with the application of an antibiotic ointment. Patients prone to the development of cold sores should be pre-treated with antiviral medication.

How the Fraxel Laser Works

The concept of the laser is to create a series of vertical wounds in the skin separated by non-treated, uninjured skin. The best way to understand how fractional resurfacing works is to imagine what happens to a lawn when it’s aerated. A similar process, on a microscopic scale, is done to the skin with fractional laser treatment. The laser creates small injuries, the diameter of a hair shaft, in the skin leaving normal, untreated skin in between. This untreated area heals the wound by removing the treated skin and replacing it with new healthy tissue. During each treatment only a fraction of the skin is treated. Both the Fraxel Repair and Fraxel Restore treatments may then be repeated three to five times at 3 to 5 week intervals, until the whole skin has been resurfaced.

Advantages

The advantage of treating the skin this way is that there is less downtime and risk of adverse events while obtaining a significant clinical improvement. This process is specifically designed to give rise to smoother, clearer skin with minimal risks and down time. The other advantage of this approach is that, unlike the ablative resurfacing procedures, it is safe enough to treat areas off the face such as the neck, chest and hands.

History

In trying to correct sun damage, scars, and aging skin there is no such thing as a free lunch. Aggressive treatments usually produce the best results, removing the surface of the skin. These techniques, which include deep chemical peels, dermabrasion and ablative carbon dioxide and erbium lasers are often painful, have a prolonged down time and can have up to a 20% risk of scarring. Attempts to improve risk and downtime resulted in non-ablative lasers (which leave skin intact), intense pulsed lights, pulsed dye lasers, and infrared lasers with aggressive cooling. These improve age spotting and blood vessels with only limited improvement in lines and wrinkles. Hence the further development of laser, culminated in fractionated laser technology.

Acne Scar Treatments Using Lasers

Many people who had acne as a child often are faced with scarring into their adult life. This tends to serve as permanent memories of their problems well into adulthood, and a reminder of time they'd rather forget. Once they reach the stage in their life when chronic acne problems are hopefully behind them for good, they seek a way to rid themselves of, or treat acne scars that remain. One such way to treat acne scards is to use a laser treatment.

The very first thing you need to do, is you need to make sure that you don't have any active acne outbreaks, and that your acne truly is behind you. It doesn't make sense -- and it wont help -- to treat your acne scars, if you are still having acne problems. If are still having acne on top of your scarring, you probably want to visit a dermatologist. Things you can buy at the drug store can be effective, and can work to keep your acne controlled, but prescription drugs often can work much better, and a licensed dermatologist can determine the right course of treatment for you. These treatments can range for oral antibiotics, topical creams or medicine, or keratolytics, or something entirely else.

Once you are totally clear of any acne problems, you can consider laser treatments for your acne scars.

Over the past several years, laser medicine has been significantly advanced. You can use it now for vision correction, for cancer, for torn ACLs, and lots of other problems. One of these is the ability to treat acne scars. A recently as a few years ago, doctors used something called a Carbon Dioxide laser to treat acne scars. This would destroy the entire surface of the skin, including the scar, of course. There was a healing period, usually 1-2 weeks, while your face regrew its appearance over the blasted area, ideally growing over the scarred area, to create new skin. During that time, your skin is open, and at risk of infection or other problems. There are other possible side effects, such as discoloration of the new skin, or actually more scarring, due to the invasive nature of the procedure.

Doctors now use something much less harsh, called non-ablative lasers, which aren't destructive. One example is the pulsed-dye laser, which takes redness out of the scars, leaving your skin more, well, skin-colored. Since most scars are red, this can have a profound impact on your appearance without being invasive at all. Another example is the fractionalized laser, such as Fraxel, which help to remodel your acne scars into healthy looking skin. This also has the benefit of having no healing period to wait through. However, this kind of treatment is a course of treatment, you can generally need 4-6 sessions to have the collagen in your skin regrow properly.

So, if you're looking to treat your acne scars using laser treatment, be sure your face is ready, and seek a non-invasive treatment. You should see results much faster, and with much less risk.