Facial Scars - Causes & Remedies

Hello everyone! I am Dr. Rashmi Shinde consultant Dermatologist and Cosmetologist practising in Mumbai.

Today I will be talking about a very specific issue that is Scar. I am sure you must have heard a lot about scars. We have seen it in ads, everyday newspaper articles and seen on some posters as well. What are these scars? How are they formed? What do they look like? I will be discussing that today.

So scars are basically the depressions or the pits on the surface of the skin. Skin is supposed to be plain or even throughout but due to any damage to the skin, because of pimples or an infection or boils or even due to an injury, the damage occurs. And the skin then starts repairing itself. There is a healing process which goes on. For a normal healing process to occur, there is something known as Collagen which is very essential. Collagen is present in the deeper layers of the skin and it forms a good network which maintains our skin's firmness and smoothness. During the healing process , if this collagen network is not formed properly or is insufficient or not very organised then the scars are visible.

So now that we know that collagen or inadequate collagen production is the major cause of scars then we know that the primary target for any treatment of scars should be focusing on collagen. Many times patients ask me that- Can creams be used for the treatment of scars? and fortunately, the answer is no. Creams do help to a certain extent. It can be used for newly formed scars or very small scars but it is not beneficial for the majority of the scars or the larger scars. Nevertheless, we have a number of modalities that we offer to our patients of which there are two primary modalities that I will be talking about today. One is micro needling technique which is done by dermaroller. Second is a very innovative technology known as Nano Fractional Radio Frequency. So micro needling is basically done with this device known as dermaroller. This consists of a handle and a barrel-shaped end on the top of which there are multiple pins. The procedure is very straightforward.

The first numbing cream is applied on the surface of the area to be treated and then this dermaroller is rolled on the skin on the scars in a particular fashion whereby it starts healing the skin producing more collagen. Dermaroller works very well for the very superficial scar, smaller scars but for deeper scars we need to use something else. Then comes the Nano Fractional Radio Frequency. It's not a laser but an energy-based device where the radio frequency energy penetrates into the deeper layers of the skin and causes stimulation of collagen and repairing of the elder collagen. So that is why it is very good and very effective. It is also effective because it works across all skin colours and all skin types.

So even sensitive skin can type and even darker skin types can equally take advantage of this technology. Now I will be demonstrating a small video of how the procedure is done. It's a very simple straightforward procedure. This is the Nano fractional radio frequency device which will be demonstrated today. The patient is first cleaned thoroughly. The area to be treated is to be cleaned and then a numbing cream may or may not be applied depending on the patient's preference. Then we start with the procedure directly. The probe is placed on the surface of the skin and the radio frequency energy is delivered to the scarred area. As we can see the patient is very much comfortable. So it is a very simple and painless and yet very effective procedure for the treatment of scars. The major advantage of Nano fractional radio frequency is that it has a very less downtime.

Very less downtime I mean that the redness after the procedure is very minimal and it is gone in one or two days. So it is very convenient for especially the working population. To summarise what we have talked about till now is that scars are formed as a part of the healing response of the body to any kind of injury to the body. There could be a number of modalities which are available nowadays for the treatment of scars of which we discussed micro needling and Nano fractional radio frequency. For more information or to book an appointment with me, you can visit Lybrate.

Thank you for watching!