Acne scarring

Acne scarring can sometimes develop as a complication of acne. Any type of acne spot can lead to scarring, but it’s more common when the most serious types of spots (nodules and cysts) burst and damage nearby skin. Scarring can also occur if you pick or squeeze your spots, so it’s important not to do this. Most serious scarring is caused by the more severe forms of acne, with nodules more likely to leave permanent scars than other types of acne.

The best approach is to get treatment for acne soon after it appears to prevent further severe acne and more scarring.

Causes

Acne Scars happen because your body is trying to repair the acne. How your unique body responds to a wound determines if and how much scarring you’ll have. The process of repair includes the creation of collagen. If there’s too much collagen then the raised scars appear. Other scarring is caused by the loss of tissue, which creates pits or indentations in the skin.

symptoms

Acne scars range in appearance from shallow, mottled depressions, sometimes called rolling scars, to deep and narrow depressions. At Harley Street Injectables, your practitioner will examine your scars thoroughly to determine the best course of treatment.

  • It is usually a flat area of discoloration on the skin. It can range in colour from white, pink, red, purple, brown, or black, depending on your skin tone and depth of the discoloration.

  • Ice pick scars are deep narrow impressions and are more severe than boxcar, atrophic, or other types of acne scars.

  • Boxcar scars are a common type of scarring that can occur as a result of the acne healing process. They appear as indents in the skin and tend to measure a few millimetres wide.

  • Rolling scars are pits or indentations in the skin, and they often have sloped sides. Each of these pits may be wider than 4-5 millimeters.

  • keloid and hypertrophic scars are common types of scarring that can occur as a result of the acne healing process. They appear as raised lesions of scar tissue on the skin and are a result of the overgrowth of fibrous tissue in the region where the acne lesion had developed.

Expert Tips

It’s best not to attempt to treat your acne without first establishing how severe it is, and what type of acne you may have. Here are a few expert tips on how to help heal your acne scarring and prevent acne scarring from forming.

  • Avoid squeezing your spots, as this can trigger an inflammatory response and cause potential scarring.

  • Topical medications and topical treatments that can greatly improve PIH and discoloration of acne scarring include Hydroquinone and Tretanoin.

  • Hormonal acne can often appear on places like the chin which is relatively prone to infection due to spreading the bacteria and turning the acne cystic.

  • Cystic acne is a severe type of acne and is often recurrent, very red and inflamed.

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