Subcision for Acne Scars

Acne and acne scars are pervasive and almost always impact a persons self confidence. I love treating them because I know with the right technology and a bit of patience, we can significantly improve the patient’s skin.

This patient is gearing up to start oral Isotretinoin for his cystic acne but wanted to improve the appearance of residual acne scars in the few weeks prior to starting the medication.

Here I’m performing subscision with a blunt cannula to break up adhesions under the skin that are anchoring each acne scar to the deeper tissue underneath. Without performing subscision, collagen stimulating treatments such as radiofrequency microneedling and CO2 laser resurfacing are less efficacious. This makes sense as the teather under the skin has been released, allowing maximum collagen growth in the scars (swipe for schematic of subscision). When his acne is well controlled, we’ll start doing treatments to stimulate collagen.

The second procedure we’re doing is Vbeam which is a vascular laser to reduce the red appearance of old and current acne bumps. This will also help reduce some of the inflammation that contributes to new acne scar formation.

Would you do this treatment? Ask questions below and I’ll make a video! #subscision #acne #acnescar