Friday, December 16, 2011

Facial Acne Scars Options to Remove Face Scars

By Catalina Igor


Acne scars start with the formation of acne. This problem begins when the skin is inundated with sebum, the oil that is produced by the sebaceous glands to moisturize and protect the skin. However, outside factors such as hormones and stress can cause a spike in sebum production.

When sebum made increases, it is forcefully pushed through the follicle to the skin's surface, damaging the cells lining the pore in the process. Other contributing factors can alter the state of the sebum, making it even more harmful to the skin. These factors include a deficiency in essential fatty acids, which keep the sebum oil from hardening, and acne causing bacteria.

This physical state change means that sebum more easily blocks pores, trapping debris and bacteria inside, allowing them to multiply. The body's immune response includes sending immune cell soldiers to the site to fight off the bacteria and further protect the skin from damage; however, this response can actually further damage the skin. In their fervent efforts to dispose of these foreign bodies, the immune cells can actually destroy healthy tissue surrounding the damaged cells and bacteria. Furthermore, the irritation to the dermal layer also affects regular collagen production and can ultimately increase the visibility of the resulting scar.

Body acne scars come both as hypertrophic and atrophic scars. Hypertrophic refers to those scars that protrude from the skin, including keloid scars that, unlike typical hypertrophic scars, continue to expand in size. These types of scars are more commonly found on the chest or back than the face. Atrophic scars, those that are lower than the regular skin level, are the types of scars more commonly resulting from facial acne. Due to injury caused at the lower skin layers, ice pick, boxcar and rolling scars are bound down, making them difficult types of scars to treat.

Facial Acne Scar Treatment Options.

To rid facial acne scars, the general regime of scar treatment won't work. Injecting steroids (which have the action of flattening scars with too much collagen) will not decrease the visibility of these types of scars. Generally, it is very hard to raise depressed skin.

In order to raise skin, one must generate new and healthy skin cells. Facial resurfacing for acne scars is a method to raise your skin. Resurfacing methods differ in the removal of skin but all have the general idea of a controlled removal of skin to encourage healthy skin cell growth.

Laser resurfacing for facial acne scars utilizes non-ablative lasers that send brief pulses of high energy light over the skin. The light is converted into heat energy that systematically vaporizes one layer after the next of skin. However, you don't simply laser face acne scars away. The scar tissue is removed and new skin growth is stimulated to replace that which was removed. Laser skin resurfacing acne scars is a precise method that does not cause much damage to the surrounding skin. For this reason, it is safe to use and so popular on facial scars.

Other resurfacing methods are less effective. Using dermabrasion on acne scars uses the same idea of regenerating the skin, however, it is less precise. Dermabrasion entails a high speed rotary instrument with abrasive fixtures to remove the layers of skin. Chemical peels on facial acne scars are similar, using a chemical solution to blister the skin and eventually peel off.

Both of these resurfacing techniques are used on the entire face and have long recovery times.

You might also consider facial surgery for acne scars. Subcision refers to the method that cuts the deeper layers of the skin so it is no longer tied down. The various punch techniques are used for deep scars, especially ice pick. These techniques that remove the tissue with the contained scar include punch excision, punch excision with skin grafting and punch elevation.

Dermal fillers are a temporary solution for facial acne scars, raising lowered areas for a period of time, but requiring repeated injections as time goes on.




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