Acne Scars – Preventing and Treating

Posted by John

June 25, 2010

Scroll down to see chapters on:

How acne scars are formed
What you can do now to prevent acne scars
Removing Acne Scars

How are Acne Scars formed?

Acne Scars are an annoying reminder of acne. Firstly, you have the pain and embassament of the acne symptoms when they occur and now you are left with a long lasting reminder of you condition. However, like with acne vulgaris, there are ways of removing acne scars but first we need to learn a bit about how they are formed so that you can prevent them from occuring.

If you have read our causes of acne post you will know how the various symptoms occur with deffering severity. The more severe the symptom the more chance there is of red acne scars forming, this is because the impact these symptoms have on the skin. Blackheads and whiteheads will never scar but if these symptoms progress into the larger pustules, papules, nodules and acne cysts then there could be a chance of scarring (depending on the person)

As there is swelling within the hair follicle the skin will go into healing mode as with any injury. If there is rapid skin growth to in response to this “injury” than a raised scar or Keloid could occur. Fortunately, as these scars are very difficult to treat, these are much rarer than depression scars which are the dimples in the skin.

Depression scars are formed because when the swelling of the hair follicle decreases as the acne symptom fades away than there is a reduction of collagen causing the depression.

Preventing Acne Scars

There are some things that you can do now to prevent acne scars. Firstly, and most importantly, never play, squeeze or pop your pimples/acne. If you do manage to pop a pimple than this will cause a rapid reduction of substance in the skin shock it into major healing mode which means that it is much more likely to scar (if you are having trouble stopping yourself playing with your pimples/zits there is more information available by entering your email address in the box to the top right of this page including advice taken from a qualified behavioural scientist)

Other things that can help prevent Acne Scars:

Treating acne now with a good acne treatment. A good acne treatment will lessen the amount of acne symtoms you experience and also reduce the severity of the zits that do occur meaning that they are less likely to scar.
Using a Treatment for Acne that includes Anti-Inflammatories. Some acne treatments have ingredients that are anti-inflammatory which means that your symptoms will not be as large as they could be and they will have less impact on the skin so the chances of scarring is reduced.
Drink more water. Simple, I know, and I add this tip to just about anything to do with health because few people truely know the health benefits of staying at maximum hydration levels. For now we will stay relevant to preventing acne scars by stating that hydrated skin heals better which will mean that it is less likely to scar (it will also reduce your acne symptoms).
Natural healing ingredients. Helping the skin to heal quickly will help reduce future acne scars as the quicker a cut (or in this case an previous acne symptom) is healed the less chance there is for a scar to form. Natural ingredients and moisturisers like Aloe Vera, for example, can really help the skin to heal. These can be found in some good acne treatments or from other sources.
Don’t pick. This is going to sound pretty rank but here goes – don’t pick at the formed scabs that resulted from an acne symptom. This just means that the skin has to go through the healing meathod all over again and gives a scar twice as much time to form.

Treating Acne Scars

There are several products that can treat acne scars for sale. In this section we will just cover the treatment for depression scars (sometimes known as “ice pick” scars) as these are the most common.

Here are a few treatments that can be used to get rid of acne scars:

Laser Acne Scar Treatment. There are two types of laser treatment. The first (laser resurfacing), works on the outer and middle layers of the skin to clear the top surface and stimulate the middle layer. This means that you can clear the scar tissue that was formed and increase collogen production in the middle layer to raise the surface of the skin. This meathod is mainly used on red acne scars. The recover time for this laser treatment is anywhere between 3 to 10 days. If the acne scar is not red in colour and is just a depression in the skin there is another laser treatment (fractional laser therapy) that works deeper in the skin to promote collogen production deeper down which will raise the surface of the skin. After this treatment the patient will just look like he has slight sunburn and recover is quick.
Dermabrasion. This works in a similiar way to laser resurfacing in that it takes away the top layer of the skin so a new smother layer can be formed. A wire brush or spinning diamond are rubbed over the skin to remove the outer layer of the skin. Healing time is quite long with this meathod.
Chemical Peels. Chemical peels are the new big thing in the beauty industry as they help with all sorts of skin imperfections (including scars). They clear away all the old and dead skin cells from deap within the pore and bring them to the surface. It is a safe way to renew your skin and much less intrusive than dermabrasion. You can get a chemical peel from a salon for about $80-300 dollars (depending on where you go) but this treatment usually has to be repeated. Alternatively, the doctors at Zenmed have developed a peel system that uses natural products and actually helps the skin to recover at it’s best after the treatment. Click on the picture below to find out more information about this product. At AcneTreatmentAdvice.org we believe this to be the best acne scars treatment to start with as this can have great results and at $70 for 10 treatments, is much much more affordable than laser treatment.