As the largest organ of your body, your skin plays many roles, including helping to regulate temperature, protecting your body from external threats, and allowing you to touch other objects. It is a part of how we see ourselves and how others see us, and many conditions can affect its health, including acne (or acne vulgaris). It’s the most common skin problem in America, with around 85% of growing teens and young adults ages 12-24 dealing with it annually.
Depending on the severity of your acne outbreaks, you may simply experience pimples on areas of the skin or have problems bad enough to leave scars, including what is called ice-pick scarring. To better understand how this happens and what to do about it, let’s look at how acne affects your skin, determine how ice pick scarring happens, and examine options for treatment.
If you live in the Lake Oswego, Oregon, area and are struggling with the effects of acne, such as ice-pick scars, the Lake Oswego Laser Aesthetics (LOLA) team at Lake Grove ENT can help.
Your skin is not a solid mass. It is a series of layers that grows hair, allows you to sweat, and makes oil to keep it moisturized. Much of this occurs through your pores, small holes in your skin that, when you have acne, become blocked by dead skin cells, bacteria, or excess oil. The blockage leads to the common signs of acne, such as pimples, blackheads, whiteheads, nodules, pustules, and cysts, and can lead to pain, tenderness, swelling, and inflammation on your skin.
If the acne is bad enough, meaning the blemishes swell enough to break down the pores, it can leave shallow or deep scars on your skin. Of the types of scars you can get, the one referred to as the ice pick leaves an indentation that resembles the tool it’s named for, where it starts wide at the top and narrows as it goes further down into your skin. It often happens where your skin is thinner, such as your forehead and upper cheeks.
There are a few options that can help you with these kinds of acne scars:
Dermal fillers are a solution often used to fill deep and sagging wrinkles and can be used to plump up depressed scars using temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent fillers like hyaluronic acid.
Using focused light to resurface (remove the upper layers) your skin can help stimulate collagen production and eliminate the pitting from ice-pick scars. We offer a couple of options for skin resurfacing, like the Clear+Brilliant system and the ICON 1540.
Ice-pick scars can leave lasting damage to your skin, but they can be treated, and we can help. Make an appointment with our LOLA team at Lake Grove ENT today to find the best options for treating your acne scars.
