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