Question: What are some techniques used for improving acne scarring?
Answer: There are multiple different techniques that can be employed to try to improve the appearance of acne scarring from as simple as filling the area with an injectable filler to subcision with a needle in conjunction with some filler material to fat grafting or more aggressive treatments, such as laser resurfacing. My personal gold standard at this time is actually a ProFractional Laser by Sciton, which is a fractionated Erbium laser where tunnels are vaporized into the skin and this creates a large amount of new collagen deposition into the dermis which in turn remodels the overlying epidermis and can create a very significant improvement in the appearance of acne scarring. The downside is that I recommend three treatments spaced at least a month apart, so the overall downtime can be very significant since each treatment requires about four or five days where the skin is healing. A very conservative approach, such as microdermabrasion or superficial or even medium-depth chemical peels, does very little for acne scarring and I recommend that patients avoid these techniques due to the fact that they are really not going to get any visible improvement in their acne scarring unless a more aggressive approach is undertaken.