Acne scars are a result of the appearance of acne. This skin problem occurs when the skin is inundated with more sebum, an oil that is made by the sebaceous glands to moisturize and protect the skin, than it is used to. Factors like hormones and stress can cause an increase in sebum production.

When sebum made increases, it is forcefully pushed through the follicle to the skin's surface, damaging the cells lining the pore in the process. In addition, different factors can cause this sebum to become even more irritating to the skin. Two of these factors are not enough essential fatty acids, which keep sebum in its more liquid state, and acne causing bacteria.

The excess production of sebum ends in trapping debris, and causing the bacteria naturally found within the skin to multiply. The body then responds to fight off these antigens and protect the skin with an inflammatory response that can actually further wound the skin. In their efforts to remove the antigens, immune cells destroy healthy, surrounding tissue. The damage to the dermal layer also changes collagen production, ultimately increasing the visibility of the scar.

Body acne scars can either be hypertrophic or atrophic. Hypertrophic scars are those that extend from the normal level of skin and include keloid scars, which are hypertrophic scars that continue to expand in size. Both of these types of scars are more regularly found on the back or chest. The more common scars that result from facial acne are depressed or atrophic acne scars. Due to injury caused at the lower skin layers, ice pick, boxcar and rolling scars are bound down, making them difficult types of scars to treat.

Facial Acne Scar Treatment Options

To rid facial acne scars, normal scar procedures won't cut it. Injecting steroids (which have the action of flattening scars with too much collagen) will not decrease the visibility of these types of scars. In fact, it is quite difficult to bring depressed skin up to its original level.

To do so, one must regenerate new, healthy skin. Facial resurfacing for acne scars is a way to raise your lowered skin. Resurfacing methods differ in the removal of skin but all have the general idea of a controlled removal of skin to encourage healthy skin cell growth.

In laser resurfacing for facial acne scars, non-ablative lasers are used that send short pulses of high energy light over the skin. The light changes into heat and systematically burns the skin away. This process does more than just laser face acne scars away. Scar tissue is eradicated and fresh skin growth is encouraged to replace the tissue that was removed. For a precise, safe method, laser skin resurfacing acne scars causes little outside damage to surrounding skin. For these reasons, it is often the preferred method for treating scars on the face.

Although there are other resurfacing options, they are not as successful. Utilizing dermabrasion on acne scars uses the same principle but is a less precise method. Dermabrasion abrades away layers of skin using a high speed rotating instrument. Chemical peels on facial acne scars are similar, using a chemical solution to blister the skin and eventually peel off.

Both of these resurfacing techniques are used on the entire face and have long recovery times.

Facial surgery for acne scars might also be considered for depressed scars. Subcision refers to the method that cuts the deeper layers of the skin so it is no longer tied down. The various punch techniques are used for deep scars, especially ice pick. These techniques that remove the tissue with the contained scar include punch excision, punch excision with skin grafting and punch elevation.

For a temporary solution, dermal fillers can be used to treat facial acne scars.