Is acne scar treatment worth the money?
This depends entirely upon expectations and goals. A course of acne scar treatment can easily run to several thousand pounds across a number of procedures and twelve to eighteen months, and can achieve a meaningful but partial improvement. No treatment can completely remove scars.
A course of treatment begins with a consultation to establish which types of scar are present and whether they are tethered. If needed subcision, TCA CROSS or punch excision are scheduled first, and then fractional ablative or non ablative laser resurfacing once contour changes have been addressed.
Where a great deal of money is spent for very little return, the explanation is nearly always one of the following: the treatment did not match the scar type, most commonly resurfacing used upon tethered scars; the same single treatment was repeated rather than combined with others; or treatment was commenced while acne remained active, so that new scars formed throughout.
In deciding whether treatment is worthwhile, the useful question is how much the scarring genuinely affects you at conversational distance in ordinary light, rather than in a magnifying mirror. Where the honest answer is that it affects you considerably, a modest improvement can make a real difference.
Before starting, it is important to ask for an assessment of your scar types, a proposed sequence of procedures and the cost of the whole course rather than a price per session. My fees are published.
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