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.
No comments:
Post a Comment