Acne scars start with the formation of acne. This skin ailment starts when the skin is irritated by excess sebum, the oil that is usually 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.

With elevated sebum secretion, the fragile cells that line the follicle can be damaged as the sebum pours through the canals to the surface. Additionally, other factors can make the sebum even more damaging to the skin. These factors include a deficiency in essential fatty acids, which keep the sebum oil from hardening, and acne causing bacteria.

This change in the state of sebum makes it more prone to blocking pores, trapping dirt and debris within the follicle and causing the already existent bacteria population 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 over eager efforts to get rid of these foreign bodies, the immune cells destroy healthy tissue that is caught up in the battle. 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 and keloid scars refer to those that protrude from the skin, the second not staying confined to the wound's original boundaries. Both of these types of scars are more regularly found on the back or chest. The more common scars that result from facial acne are depressed or atrophic acne scars. 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, normal scar procedures won't cut it. To illustrate, the injection of steroids to flatten hypertrophic scars will not diminish these 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 describes a method to bring up your skin. Although methods differ in how they remove layers of skin, the general idea is a controlled removal of skin tissue to stimulate skin cell regeneration.

In laser resurfacing for facial acne scars, non-ablative lasers are used that send short pulses of high energy light over the skin. Converting into heat, the laser vaporizes the layers of skin away. This process does more than just 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.

There are other resurfacing options but are not as 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.

These methods are typically applied to the entire face with lengthy recovery periods.

You might also consider facial surgery for acne scars. Subcision is a surgical method that cuts the deeper layers of the skin so that is not bound down. Punch techniques are mostly used for ice pick and other deep scars. These procedures (punch excision, punch excision plus skin grafting and punch elevation) remove the tissue with the scar.

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.