I used to cringe when I thought of laser therapy for acne scars. Why? Because my daughter Sandi subjected herself to it years ago. The damage left behind on her face is just as disfiguring as the scars were. In a way, worse. Really - The skin on her face is mottled. Unnaturally white where laser ran over her skin, then pink where the skin has been untouched. It looks very unnatural and is eye catching. She has to no way to correct it, and has to wear heavy foundation to cover it.

Back then, when she had it done, the only laser therapy available was 1st generation Carbon Dioxide laser. This laser destroys the surface of the skin. It leaves the skin open and there is a prolonged healing time. Unfortunately, there is a risk of side-effects such as additional scarring, and permanent whitening of the skin. That is what happened to Sandi.

But laser treatment has come a long long way. Lasers now do not remove the top layers of skin. These laser have a lot less risk and are more effective at treating acne scarring than Carbon Dioxide lasers. There are more that a few types of lasers available for acne scars. The most popular are pulsed-dye laser and fractionated laser.

In Sandi's case, her scarring was not that severe. She just had a bad case of redness. Had she left it until now, she could of been a candidate for pulsed-dye laser. One of the benefits of the pulsed-dye laser is takes the redness out of the acne scars. Since often acne scars often take the form of discoloration, such as in my daughters case, pulse-dye laser can very quickly improve the appearance of acne scar redness tremendously.

She could of also use another type of popular laser acne treatment called fractionated laser. It is called such because it only does a fraction of the skin at a time. The best way to understand how fractional resurfacing works is to think of a lawn being aerated. Fractional laser is the same, but on a microscopic scale. The fractional laser creates tiny "microthermal" zones deep into the skin which the skin repairs by pushing out the scar tissue replacing it with new skin. For each square centimeter, about 1000-2000 holes are created. This prompts the body's healing mechanism to produce collagen and new skin cells. The disadvantage to this is that the treatments are numerous, but the results are highly satisfactory with minimal down time and less side effects.

It is too late for my daughter, but the advancement today give hope to those who are looking for a solution to acne scarring. Not only is it effective, but all of types of laser therapy today means people have options and choice for choosing what kind of laser therapy is best suited for their type of scarring. Talk to your doctor, and discuss your options. Eradicating acne scars with today's laser therapy is safe and effective.