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I have been working with Dr. Andrea Hui Austin in San Francisco for the past two years to improve my atrophic scarring. I am almost done (Fraxel re:pair next month!) but I just looked at my progress pictures and I'm crying because of how things have turned out so far. It's so much better than I could have imagined. I have had two TCA cross treatments, one Vitalize peel, then two more TCA cross treatments with deep microneedling right after, and I have been consistently using sunscreen/0.5% tretinoin/TNS Advanced+ the entire time.
I can detail pre/post care of those procedures/products used/tips if anyone wants.
It honestly looked a lot worse before it got better due to the TCA cross, but I'm really glad I stuck with it. Definitely had couple breakdowns though not gonna lie. I am really nervous for Fraxel but I am trying to be calm about it and keep my trust in her.
I wouldn't do anything if my skin looked like that, especially not laser.
52 minutes ago, charisma786 said:Your skin looks nearly perfect now. Laser causes fat loss and other complications and can give you additional scarring and issues. Please avoid laser at all costs.
I think fractional is the culprit for these issues, full ablation shouldnt cause that issues as you are uniformly ablatingthe edges.
10 hours ago, Kay24 said:I wouldn't do anything if my skin looked like that, especially not laser.
Why? I trust my doctor 1000% she got me to this point, so why would she risk my progress? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
6 hours ago, charisma786 said:Your skin looks nearly perfect now. Laser causes fat loss and other complications and can give you additional scarring and issues. Please avoid laser at all costs.
Why would my dermatologist who brought me to this point do a procedure that would put me at risk? I trust her 100%
Congrats on your results! They are very very good.
However, you were lucky to have easily treatable scars -- icepicks and some small boxcar scars -- fair skin,and skin that reacted well to TCA. I'm sure Dr. Austin is a fine dermatologist, but this was not a technically difficult scar revision; most practitioners with knowledge of CROSS could have achieved this result.Your collagen remodeling did most of the work here.
Laser is only needed if you have bad texture or uneven pigmentation. You have neither, so either the laser will be too weak to do anything and be a waste of money, or too strong and give you orange-peel texture (if you react badly to it). Either way, it's unnecessary.
4 hours ago, k95 said:Congrats on your results! They are very very good.
However, you were lucky to have easily treatable scars -- icepicks and some small boxcar scars -- fair skin,and skin that reacted well to TCA. I'm sure Dr. Austin is a fine dermatologist, but this was not a technically difficult scar revision; most practitioners with knowledge of CROSS could have achieved this result.Your collagen remodeling did most of the work here.
Laser is only needed if you have bad texture or uneven pigmentation. You have neither, so either the laser will be too weak to do anything and be a waste of money, or too strong and give you orange-peel texture (if you react badly to it). Either way, it's unnecessary.
I don't know if it's the lighting, but my texture is still not very good!
I'm very happy for you especially since TCA cross could be hit or miss for some and you got good results. It looks much better, although I'll admit I'm a bit surprised you got that from peels, TCA cross and deep microneedling. You do have pores that are noticeable but it's immeasurably better and mostly level, sorta like night and day from the before. I would say you have a bit like I have after dermabrasion. Meaning from a reasonable distance they are mostly invisible.
I think they'd look even more invisible close up if somehow you could fade the colors more, but that might just take more time. Tretinoin and vit c might help and there might be other ways but idk to be honest haven't researched it much.
Just out of curiosity what does your doctor say the laser will help with, further blending (edges of what's left even superficial)or pigment/texture help and/or color help?
Thanks for sharing your experience! I went to her several times but went elsewhere because I wasn't confident in her. I got a TCA session with her and I don't think she applied it perfectly to my biggest scar. I did a non-ablative treatment with her but it didn't do anything. She offered Fraxel for $2,000 but I wasn't confident in the device.
Everybody has his/own scars and treatments work differently on them. I'm glad to see results that reflect this!
12 hours ago, Amanda Hall said:Thanks for sharing your experience! I went to her several times but went elsewhere because I wasn't confident in her. I got a TCA session with her and I don't think she applied it perfectly to my biggest scar. I did a non-ablative treatment with her but it didn't do anything. She offered Fraxel for $2,000 but I wasn't confident in the device.
Everybody has his/own scars and treatments work differently on them. I'm glad to see results that reflect this!
Can I ask why you didn't feel confident in her aside from the TCA misstep? I am almost thinking about cancelling my laser with her ... and just letting her do my Botox/filler, and continuing with microneedling.
On 4/4/2022 at 11:56 PM, misu922 said:
Can I ask why you didn't feel confident in her aside from the TCA misstep? I am almost thinking about cancelling my laser with her ... and just letting her do my Botox/filler, and continuing with microneedling.
I guess I didn't think her recommendation of the non-ablative laser and tretinoin would help my scars. But if I got those treatments 5000 times, it would probably help. I wanted something more aggressive, but didn't want to do Fraxel. However, if that earlier person got results, then that might be something to consider. We all have different scars so some treatments work for some but not others. Maybe I would get improvement if I tried Fraxel with her. I don't know.