It's Time to Get Rid of Acne Scars

When I was a teenager, I was afflicted with some pretty bad acne. For the first couple years of high school especially, I couldn't seem to get rid of them no matter what I tried. However, I've learned over the years that prevention is far more important than trying to cure them once they show up.

If you are currently suffering from acne, then you are in a much better position, as you can take action to treat your skin well to reduce the amount of acne scarring that you will ultimately get.  A combination of diet, exercise, and perhaps vitamins will go a long way towards keeping your skin at it's maximum potential for healing itself.

If you've already had it and are suffering from acne scarring, there are a couple medical operations that may be able to help you get your skin looking the way it once was. Let's look at each of these situations and discuss the best possible option for you.

If you are currently a teenager, or are just suffering from acne presently regardless of your age, it's very important that you learn how to treat it, so that you can reduce the chance of future scarring.  By taking good care of your skin during breakouts, you'll have less scarring in the long run to worry about.

First off, popping pimples can be dangerous to your skin.  The act of popping zits involves applying pressure to the skin around the acne, and while you can usually get some of the pus out by doing this, some of it inevitably will end up going the other way and getting embedded deeper into your skin.  This can cause future damage.

You shouldn't pop acne in general.  In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that if a pimple has a whitehead on it, I tend to pop them myself.  But unless the infection is clearly at the surface of the skin, I don't touch it.

You want to make sure your skin is clean, BUT you don't want to dry it out.  If your skin dries out your body will respond by increasing the amount of oils it sends to your face, in order to moisturize it.  So the most important part here is to clean your face, but have some sort of oil-free moisturizer for your skin.  Try to find a facewash that doesn't dry you out.

When food is involved, you want to avoid foods that cause you to dehydrate.  If you don't have enough water in your system, your body can't flush your pores out as well, which can result in more acne.  Particularly, caffeine dries your body out, as well as excessive amounts of soda.  Drink exclusively water or green tea if you can, and limit all other liquids as much as possible.

Leans meats and vegetables are good, as they will give your body the nutrients it needs, which keeps your skin healthier and keeps it fighting off infection a bit better.  The better your nutrition is, the easier getting rid of acne scars and preventing further acne will be.

If your acne days are over and your skin is scarred, your choices are somewhat limited.  Scarring is scarring, and so you're going to have to look into different methods like skin peeling or even plastic surgery to correct it.  These options are not particularly cheap, but if the scarring is very bad, it may be your only option.

Skin peeling, or microdermabrasion, will in theory get rid of the surface layers of your skin which can allow the skin to grow in naturally, without scarring.  This is a relatively minor procedure that doesn't have a whole lot of side effects, but at the same time it's not always as effective as we hope either.  The skin will be red, puffy, and tender afterwards, and will require some care to avoid infection, as it's very weak after the process.

Needless to say, you will probably want a doctor who is extremely skilled and recommended for this procedure.  I never had skin peeling done, but if I had, I would not have hesitated to pay extra for a high quality doctor.

The biggest choice you could make is to get plastic surgery, which may or may not be recommended in your case.  Most doctors would only perform it if you are severely disfigured by acne, which is rare, but does happen.

If you do want to consider this, find a skilled doctor.  You are performing invasive surgery on a very delicate part of your body, and you will want someone who is very experience to be doing it.  If you are a candidate for this you have probably been seeing a dermatologist for acne for some time, and also are aware that the run for discovering how to get rid of acne scars fast is more of a marathon than a sprint.

Acne scarring is very natural - really, if you look at pictures of celebrities for example, when they don't have makeup on they clearly have just as many acne problems as anyone else does.  So you're in good company.

But at the same time acne scarring can cause some distress, especially in our formative teenage years, and so it can be important to prevent and get rid of acne scarring.  Diet, exercise, and dermatology visits will go a long way towards keeping your skin as healthy as it can be.