What Is Acne Scarring?
Acne scarring occurs when your body is trying to heal after a breakout it tries to replace the lost skin tissue that has been destroyed. The body produces either too much or too little of this tissue. When the body creates too much tissue, the acne lesion becomes a raised scar – known as a hypertrophic scar (or, in severe cases, a keloid). On the other hand, a lack of tissue results in skin depressions – known as atrophic scars.
Types of Acne Scarring
What Factors Contribute To Acne Scarring?
You can have really good hand hygiene and do all the appropriate things to prevent breakouts but sometimes they still just happen. There are also other factors that will lead to acne scarring:
- Genetics: For some people, scarring is simply in the genes. If your family has a history of acne scars, you may want to be extra careful about taking care of your skin.
- Sun exposure: The Vitamin D in sunlight is great for your face – just don’t get too much of it. While intense sun exposure may not directly cause scarring, it definitely plays a role in making your acne marks darker and more noticeable.
- Puberty: Big surprise, right? Someday we’ll discover puberty is actually good for something. In the meantime, it seems to cause more trouble than it’s worth. Case in point: teenagers tend to develop more acne because of all the hormonal changes taking place in their bodies. And more acne means a higher risk of scarring.
- Acne severity: As you might expect, scarring is directly tied to severity. When acne is more inflamed, more widespread, and more deeply rooted in the skin, scarring is much more likely to occur.
- Acne frequency: Similarly, patients who experience frequent breakouts run a higher risk of scarring.
- Gender: Both men and women can develop acne scarring – it just seems to be more prominent among men. That’s because, in general, men tend to develop acne that’s severer and more persistent – due to androgen (the male hormone). Sorry, guys.
- Time: The sooner, the better! Turns out the longer you wait before getting treatment, the higher your risk of developing scars. So if just washing your face and keeping your hands off isn’t doing the trick, it may be time to see a dermatologist and get some help.
How Can We Treat It?
Microneedling SkinPen ®
Also called collagen induction therapy (CIT). SO Aesthetics Clinic in Northern Ireland uses this treatment to cause micro injuries to the skin. Nurse Susie uses the FDA approved medical device. The micro needles penetrate the upper layer of skin and break up old strands of collagen in the lower layer. This evokes a wound healing response which in turn stimulates new collagen and elastin formation. It is during the process of laying down this new collagen that it can become more organised which is what will improve the acne scarring.
Profhilo®
Profhilo is one of the most proven effective skin remodelling agents available. As well as filling lines and wrinkles, Profhilo® it can also help improve acne scarring. It uses one of the highest concentrations of Hyaluronic acid on the market (64mg / 2ml)
Medical Grade Peel- BioRePeel Cl3®
Nurse Susie would also recommend BioRePeel as it is an excellent anti-ageing peel due to it containing all the essential amino acids and vitamins your skin needs. It also contains 35% TCA ( for face and neck) and 50% TCA ( for body)and GABA (Gamma Aminobutyrric Acid) which is muscle relaxant and thereby reduces wrinkles.
