r/AcneScars

fm17 To be honest i don’t know what to do anymore. i tried retinol and caused more cystic acne and inflammation , a better skincare routine and still suffer from this. its been 5-6 months since this started and i’m just feel miserable about everything. i’ve been ran off this subreddit because it seemed like i was insensitive to other people because they have it worse. But It doesn’t diminish the fact that i see a negative change to my face. imagine how i feel when i try to tell myself it’s not that bad but i still see this everyday, even if i tried my hardest with skincare without having to put needles or lasers in my face to not be so visible, and then 2 more scars form just by 3 minutes of inflammation in the face that i can’t control. even if people and my family were to tell me it’s fine and my skin looks good. i can never see it. i don’t know, maybe i meed to be patient but it’s not changing. And now i’m scared of it getting worser in my 20s because of lack of collagen production. i’m just tired and kinda hopeless..I’m sorry for aggressively expressing my feeling, i don’t really have no one to talk about and burden them.

Hi!
I did a 30% tca cross on my partner’s acne scars and just wanted to share the before and after. It did take like 4-5 months to completely heal/fill in but here’s the after!

Is there noticeable improvement?
Take in consideration light difference

what’s everyone’s secret product for getting rid of acne scars? i would prefer something i can buy straight up without the hassle (and money) of a dermatologist appointment. any recommendations would be appreciated!

Thinking of opting for RF Microneedling to fix my skin. Send suggestions as to what will help. TIA!!

i have only done lasers so far ? i feel like most of my scars are boxcar scars but i cant really tell if someone knows

these acne scars are new and I used to be known for my skin and how good it looked. my grandma has good skin as well. I have scarring now from eating badly to save money. and I think my skin texture will go back to normal but the scarring is there. :'(

-sensitive skin

-i believe my pores got bigger with retina and epiduo

-need to know best treatments for scars like this

Hi everyone,
I had my first subcision + Juvelook treatment yesterday .
This photo is from before the procedure.
I just wanted to share my starting point and track my progress here. I know results take time, so I’m trying to be patient and realistic 😞
If anyone has similar experience with subcision + Juvelook, I’d really appreciate hearing how your healing/progress went over the next few months.
Thanks!

Hi all!! my acne scars confuse me…some days it looks great and the subcision and sculptra (2sessions) was the best thing i ever did and other days like today they look so deep and terrible. My question for you all who have done subcision… my derm went under and used a fan like motion beneath all the scars on my cheek, maybe 3 minutes each side. Has anyone had a subcision where they worked on each scar individually? if so, what was the outcome for you? Thank you!! love this group and how we’re all in this together.

Obviously theres a few very prominent atrophic scars, a little bit of hyperpigmentation, and the ones that piss me off the most are what I think are a ton of tiny icepick scars on my cheeks but I perceive them as general skin texture.

I'm near chicago and I've heard good things about Dr. Lauren Fine as a specialist for acne scars, and I'd hope she'd be a lot of help but what puts me off is that a lot of the "after" photos on her website would be my "before" photo. Is there something simpler i could look into and start doing.. like for example would just going straight to regular ol microneedling help?

I feel like these photos don’t do my scars justice but my cheeks have several dents in them. I’m so self conscious about them, I don’t want to leave the house. I already spoke to a dermatologist but she just wants to do PRP microneedling, but that isn’t possible as I have active acne. She said my scars are shallow but honestly, depending on the lighting I really feel like my scars are deeper than they seem.

Could anyone suggest anything based on their personal experience? I have very very sensitive skin, and I believe I’ve already had one TCA peel…

Additional info: most scars are 6 months old, but some of them are fresh. :/

first with makeup, second without present, 3rd was a year ago in 2025, I've tried tca it kinda made it worse the last time I used it but I also only used it on my scars, which I usually don't do. im on trent .1%. I ordered a 2mm micro needle roller, waiting on it to arrive because i only used .5mm and .25mm and realized I wasn't going deep enough

should I look into plastic surgery or a dermatologist to help reduce the scars or should I look into subcision? advice please?

I almost didn't post this because I still have scarring to deal with but honestly looking at these side by side I can't believe that's the same face. The before pic was taken at my lowest. My cheeks and jawline were covered in painful cystic acne, dark marks everywhere, texture all over. I couldn't leave the house without makeup and even then I felt like everyone was staring. I'd been cycling through products for over a year SA, BP, random serums from TikTok, new cleansers every month. Nothing stuck because I never gave anything long enough to work and I had no idea what was actually helping vs making things worse. The turning point was when I finally saw a derm and she told me to stop everything. She put me on tret 0.025% every other night, a gentle cleanser, basic moisturizer, and SPF. That's it. She told me the hard part wouldn't be the routine it would be trusting the process and not adding stuff back in. She was right. The purge at week 3-4 almost broke me. New spots in places I'd never broken out before. I wanted to quit so bad. What kept me going was I'd started logging everything in a app called Thea, what I applied, how my skin felt alll of it. When my skin looked awful in the mirror I could scroll back to week 1 and see that even though new spots were coming up, the older ones were healing faster and my overall texture was improving. I would've quit without that honestly.

By month 2 the purge calmed down. By month 3 I stopped wearing foundation for the first time in over a year. Now at month 4 my skin is the clearest it's been since I was like 22. I still have some hyperpigmentation and a few shallow scars that bother me. Thea actually flagged that azelaic acid and vitamin C could help with the PIH so I'm going to talk to my derm about adding those in. I just booked my next appointment and honestly I'm excited to go instead of dreading it for once. She's been so happy with my progress and our sessions have become super productive because I just pull up my Thea timeline and she can see exactly what happened between visits no guessing, no trying to remember. We're going to focus on the scarring next and I finally feel like that's a problem worth having because it means the acne is actually under control.

Routine: AM CeraVe hydrating cleanser, moisturizer, SPF 50 PM CeraVe hydrating cleanser, tret 0.025% (every other night, now moved to nightly), moisturizer

I have some acne scarring that’s really been bothering me. I’ve been told that CO2 laser is best, but while I’m quite pale, I’m a bit nervous about my risk for hyperpigmentation because I have a lot of that leftover from acne (and I’m worried that’ll mean I’ll be more prone to hyperpigmentation from the laser)

I was also thinking about RF microneedling, but I’d like dramatic results and heard that RF microneedling might not be that effective (and can also cause fat loss). Any insight would be appreciated!

I had 3 x sessions pico laser and 1x fractional Co2 laser, my scars are mild to moderate but have barely improved i thought these treatments would be more than enough but nothing is helping, the first session of pico laser did alot for my surface level scars and the co2 fractional laser blended the edges but my deep scard are still the same when we are talking about depth and my other scars have slightly improved but they’re not improving anymore :( should i try subscision or tca cross or more round of fractional co2? please help me