Why has fractional laser treatment been ineffective for my acne scars?

Doctor's Answer

The ideal acne scar removal treatment plan consists of using a synergistic combination of acne scar lasers and manual techniques over multiple treatment sessions with good post-treatment after-care.

While CO2 Fractional Laser might have been the acne removal laser treatment of choice for the past few years, many patients and doctors have found that just using CO2 Fractional Lasers (like Fraxel, SmartXide, ECO2, EDGE) alone is insufficient to produce significant results.

The latest acne scar removal treatment plans often have the following factors:

1. Comprehensive Diagnosis of Acne Scars

- Precise diagnosis leads to comprehensive treatments, which leads to optimal results.

- This is because not every acne scar will improve with CO2 Fractional Laser.

- In fact, ice-pick acne scars might have minimal improvement with CO2 Fractional Laser and hypertrophic acne scars (common at the jaw-line) might even worsen with CO2 Lasers.

- There are 3 big categories of acne scars:

Atrophic (depressed) scars: Box-car acne scars, Rolling scars, Ice-pick scars

Hypertrophic scars: Keloids

Colored scars: Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (brown marks), Post-inflammatory erythema (red marks).

- Most patients have a MIX of different types of acne scars, which brings me to my next point.

2. Combination treatments give optimal results

If you have a mix of different types of acne scars, you will need a combination of treatments beyond just CO2 Lasers alone.

Other treatments include: Subcision +/- Fillers, INFINI/ Intracel Radiofrequency Micro-needling, TCA Cross deep chemical peel.

3. Quality Post-treatment Care

All the aforementioned laser treatments are focused at causing "controlled injury" to your skin so that your skin will heal with new and hopefully perfect skin.

However, perfect skin healing is often not the case. In fact, skin that scars easily from acne is prone to poor wound healing.

To improve healing, we use recovery serums like Calecim and AnteAge.

In addition, we might also use Rejuran to improve collagen production so that you get the most out of your laser treatments.

For more information on Acne Scar Treatment Costs in Singapore.

Hope that this helps!

Warmest regards,

Dr Justin Boey

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