Acne Scar Treatment - Seattle Dr. Young Award Winning Facial Plastic Surgeon Discusses His Approach, Before and After Photos of Acne Scar Revision, and Frequently Asked Questions regarding Improving your Acne Scars Below:

Before and After Seattle Acne Scar Treatment with Surgical Excisions and Geometric Line Closures. SEE BELOW FOR MORE BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF OUR ACNE SCAR TREATMENT / REDUCTION:

Dr. Young has a very rewarding experience treating clients who have acne scars as well as maintaining control of their acne to avoid further scars from occuring. For acne prevention, Dr Young has a 4 step process which entails:

1. A Scientifically Based Acne Skin Care Approach
2. Topical Anti-Bacterial Treatments
3. Oral Anti-Bacterial Medications
4. An array of peels that you can do at home and stronger ones that we can do for you that can keep your acne controlled.

He employs a well thought out assortment of techniques for Acne Scar Treatment. Here are the options and other links for Acne Scar Treatment:

1. Acne Scar Excisions: Subcision, W plasty, Z plasty, Geometric line closures;
2. Chemical Peeling: Jessner's, Trichloroacetic Acid, Glycolic, Vitalese;
3. Dermabrasion / dermasanding;
4. Fat Augmentation;
5. Facial Fillers;
6. cO2 Laser Treatments, here is another video on cO2 Laser Resurfacing;
7. See more Acne Scar Treatment Before and After Images with this link.
8. See more Acne Scar Subcision TCA Chemical Peel Healing Diary with this link.
9. See more Acne Scar Treatment Treatment Videos with this link.
10. See more Acne Scar Treatment Videos On our YouTube Channel.

With his CO2 laser, he has a special method that he terms "Graduated CO2 Laser Acne Scar Treatment," which can target the depressed scars preferentially to allow them to elevate to the level of the rest of the skin.

If you are interested at anytime about scheduling an appointment you can email, call (425-990-3223) and even text message us at anytime. Click here if you would like to find out more about our consultation process. We can set up a phone consultation for you and show you how to take the 5 basic photos that you will need.

Below you will find some more before and after Photos of Acne Scar Treatment / Reduction / Removal. You can scroll down further to see some Frequently Asked Questions on Acne Scar Treatment:

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Excisions and Geometric Line Closures with further cO2 Laser Resurfacing to improve the results additionally.

"Dr. Young, I love my results. I went on a date the other night and my date told me my skin looked fabulous. I'm so happy!" — NL.

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Surgical Excisions and Geometric Line Closures.

After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Surgical Excisions and Geometric Line Closures WITH THE ADDITION OF CO2 LASER RESURFACING.

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Subcision and cO2 Laser Resurfacing. You can click here for a Subcision and TCA Chemical Peeling Healing Diary for your post procedure care.

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Subcision and cO2 Laser Resurfacing CLOSE UP VIEW OF THE FOREHEAD SCARRING. You can click here for a Subcision and TCA Chemical Peeling Healing Diary for your post procedure care.

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Subcision and cO2 Laser Resurfacing view of the mouth area.

Before                                                 After

Before and After Acne Scar Treatment with Subcision and cO2 Laser Resurfacing view of the Eye area.

Below are some frequently asked questions that can help you understand the our Approach to Acne Scar Treatment. If you have any questions you can email, call (425-990-3223) us at any time:

Question: What makes your approach to Acne Scar Treatment Different than other doctors

Answer: To begin with, we take a multi step approach to treating acne. First, you have to figure out whether your acne is still active. If not, we have to control your active acne through oral and Topical medications. Once controlled, you will notice improvements in your skin. Our Scientifically Based Acne Skin Care Approach will further go over our treatment of active acne. For old scars we approach the Acne Scar Treatment in multiple different ways. The links above will lead you to more specific explanations of each procedural approach. But in general, Dr. Young and our Team at Aethetic Facial Plastic Surgery treats acne scars through 3 main stages:

1st stage: Fat Grafting; and volumizing procedures (i.e. fillers, subcision)
2nd stage: Acne Scar Excisions:, Subcisions, W plasty, Z plasty, Geometric Line Closures, Skin / Tissue Grafting, Local Flaps, Chemical Peeling, Facial Fillers, to get the scars to the same level as the surrounding skin.
3rd stage: Dermabrasion / dermasanding;, cO2 Laser Treatments, to polish the more level skin.

Our feeling is that you want to first get the depressed scars to elevate and to become more healthier with better blood flow and vasularity. This is done in the first stage. The second stage then further corrects the depressions and elevations to get the skin at the same level as the surrounding healthy skin. Lastly in the third stage, once the skin is at the same level, we then do further touch ups, and polishing with cO2 laser resurfacing, and Dermabrasion / Dermasanding.

So to further answer the question. We set ourselves apart from others based on the different approach that we have to Acne Scar Treatments. Our philosophy is different. We also employ a wide variety of approaches to handle all aspects and variations that Acne Scars can present to the clinician and patient wanting to improve these scars. We have in our set of skills more invasive and surgical approaches to improve your Acne Scarring as well as less invasive, but equally powerful techniques to handle specific elements of the scarring.

Question: When do you decide to do excisions to improve acne scarring?

Answer: Excisions, are just a more complicated term for cutting out the scar. Excisions are good to use when you have elevated scars. The other options for those are to laser them but in general excisions lead to a better outcome. This is a Before and After Acne Scar Excision link to some photos of an Acne Scar that was raised that was markedly improved with excisions to the elevated scars. You can also look above for examples of how an excision can help the appearance of your scar. After the elevated scars were excised, we used a cO2 laser to resurface the scars for a marked improvement. The othertimes we choose to excise are when you have depressed scars that are really close to each and that an irregular pattern is able to connect the depressed scars. We liked the irregular nature of the excision to achieve something similar to what a geometric line closure can do to camouflage an incision or scar. Preferrably, we like to do excisions after fat injections to get better healing. One point to realize is that most of the time you have to use a wedge to take out a scar to avoid bunching of the ends of the incisions, called dog ears by doctors. So if a scar is round and about 1 cm, you might have to expect that the excision will be twice as long as the widest margin of the scar. Sometimes, the excision can incorporate parts of the scar so that less normal skin needs to be involved. But this can be furthered discussed with your physician.

Question: What kind of anesthesia would I need for a Acne Scar Treatment procedure?

Answer: Traditionally, Acne Scar Treatment and many other procedures associated with improving Acne Scars have been done under local, regional or intravenous sedation. Most doctors usually avoid general anesthesia for Acne Scar Treatment, unless they are considering cO2 laser resurfacing. In this type of anesthesia, you are totally asleep and even in a deeper state of unconsciousness than sleep. Although, you are the most comfortable, per se, when you are having a procedure done under general anesthesia there are risks with this choice of getting a procedure done. Their are many risks with general anesthesia. One concern that many people have is that it can permanently affect your mental abilities and your brain function. Some are concerned that Alzheimer's is promoted more with this type of anesthesia. Because you have to be relaxed during this form of anesthesia to allow you to tolerate a tube down your windpipe, this relaxation places you more at risk for a deep vein thrombosis. This risk is increased if you are a female. Other risks of general anesthesia include trauma to your breathing tube, waking up during general anesthesia, malignant hyperthermia, etc. These are some of the many reasons why we elect to use Intravenous Sedation (or otherwise known as IV sedation) for Acne Scar Treatment. Many of these risks are more commonly avoided when you do IV sedation as opposed to general anesthesia. With IV sedation, you don't have to be relaxed to accept the endotracheal tube because you don't need one. You are breathing on your own with this type of IV sedation. So your risks for a deep vein thrombosis are much less with IV sedation. The level of consciousness is lighter. You are still going to be unaware during the procedure. You will also not remember anything during the procedure but you will have less chance of any minor damage to your brain function. But one of the more important benefits of IV sedation is that you will recover from this type of anesthesia faster. Dr. Barry Friedberg has found that through his technique the rate of nausea is much less with IV sedation as opposed to general anesthesia. You can read more about the different levels of anesthesia on this page. But there are many procedures done for Acne Scar Treatment that can be also done with local, topical or regional anesthesia.

Question: How long does it take to heal from Acne Scar Treatments?

Answer: It really depends on what type of procedure you are doing. Fat injections and subcision entail more swelling and brusing during the healing and recovery process. Whereas, excisions, geometric line closures, w plasties, z plasties, tissue grafting, local flaps have less bruising and swelling but you have to allow the incisional areas to heal. Generally, we like to say that you will get 60% of your healing in 6 weeks, and 90% at 6 months. That might seem a long while. But most of your healing, around 40-50% will be in the first week or so. Generally, the first week you will see a huge improvement. It will be more challenging the first 2-3 days and then rapidly get better by week's end. Our Facial Plastic Surgery Resource Page will contain, on the left, multiple pdf procedure care packages for you to read to help you through the recovery / healing process.