Dr. Lam has truly established a unique following of patients who travel from across the world every week to have him personally manage their acne scars. Typically, most of these patients have failed multiple other treatments including lasers, dermabrasion, subcision, and fillers. Dr. Lam has achieved superior cosmetic outcomes with medical-grade silicone micro injections performed over repeated sessions, slowly improving the condition over time. Collagen also builds to create permanent results for patients. At times he will combine the use of hyaluronic-acid based injections and/or fat grafting for deep volume loss but not for typical acne scars, as these treatments are not as effective for moderate to smaller types of scarring. When acne scars have improved to the point that only minor dermal etching remains, Dr. Lam may employ lasers (fractional and non-fractional) to further improve the acne scars. However, he believes lasers as a first-line treatment fails in most cases because the scars are too deep to be improved via laser resurfacing alone. For more information on the lasers that Dr. Lam uses, please visit that section.
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Key Points:
- Silicone micro injections are the mainstay of how Dr. Lam treats acne scars. To achieve a visible improvement may require 2 to 3 rounds spaced at least a month apart (a longer interval is completely acceptable). A bell curve exists where initially after the first round there may not be as much visible improvement, and then over time there may be slightly less benefit observed after 4 to 5 rounds of treatment. As the scarring becomes less evident, one can choose to wait a longer time interval to allow collagen remodeling to occur (which takes about 60 to 90 days) that can further enhance a session’s results.
- Even though most of Dr. Lam’s patients only go through about 4 to 5 rounds of silicone treatment, he has witnessed ongoing improvements in patients who have far exceeded that number of sessions.
- With aging of the face, the face loses volume. Large volume loss to the face may make acne scars appear worse with aging. Although Dr. Lam believes that silicone is safe in very small quantities for acne scarring, he prefers hyaluronic acid (like Restylane and Juvederm) or fat grafting to correct volume loss associated with aging. He oftentimes will combine these two treatments (silicone micro and hyaluronic acid injections) even in a single session to correct the problems with aging and acne scars. Fat grafting is a surgical procedure and would be performed separately.
- Dr. Lam uses fractionated laser and then coats the face with Sculptra to achieve better results. However, he only uses lasers at the final stage and only if he needs to do this. He typically only laser resurfaces about 10% of those patients undergoing acne scar correction with silicone micro.
- This drawing shows that deeper scars need to be elevated closer to the skin surface with silicone micro since a laser will be unable to sand down the skin to the level of the abnormal atrophic skin pit of the acne scar.
FAQs
Why does Dr. Lam use silicone and is it safe?
Dr. Lam has been using silicone for 15 years and believes that silicone is very safe in properly skilled hands, in minute quantities used for acne scarring, and in pure medical-grade form. However, any permanent filler carries with it a risk of infection of the product that may require an antibiotic to manage it. Fortunately, this situation is extremely rare. The reason that Dr. Lam uses micro silicone is that he has achieved far superior results with this method of treatment than with any other method he has used to correct acne scarring.
Does Dr. Lam believe in dermabrasion, subcision, or excision?
Simply put no. He uses mechanical dermabrasion (not to be confused with microdermabrasion performed at a spa) to correct linear surgical scars but finds that dermabrasion does not work well for acne scar corrections. He also does not believe that subcision or excision works well for acne scars and can either result in no improvement or worsening of the situation.
Does Dr. Lam use hyaluronic acid (Restylane and Juvederm) as an alternative to silicone micro?
Yes. In general, he believes he achieves superior results with silicone micro. However, there are some specific cases when Dr. Lam prefers hyaluronic acid. First, if someone simply prefers to use this product instead Dr. Lam is amenable to that. Second, if the scars are too deep and silicone will be very hard to elevate these deep scars. (Dr. Lam will evaluate you for your candidacy.) Third, you have a major upcoming event and you want as much correction in your scars as quickly as possible. Dr. Lam can inject far more hyaluronic acid in a single treatment session than silicone micro due to how he can safely use each product.
Does Dr. Lam use lasers to treat acne scars?
As discussed throughout, Dr. Lam believes that in most cases lasers simply cannot lower the surrounding normal skin to the level of the abnormal skin and that this is a flawed treatment strategy.
Your Cosmetic Surgery Procedures will be performed by Dr. Lam's surgery center located in Dallas, Frisco and Plano, TX.
Doctor Lam used microsilicon injections to treat my acne scarring. After trying different acne scarring correction treatments, Dr Sam Lam was the only doctor who was able to provide me with noticeable improvement. Dr Lam did a great job explaining everything and listening to my concerns
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Acne Scarring Correction procedures are performed by Dr Lam personally, at his Cosmetic Surgery center in Dallas, Texas. To schedule a Acne Scarring Correction consultation call 972.312.8105 or email us. The details of your Acne Scarring Correction (both the limitations and the benefits in your particular situation) will be explained to you during your consultation with Dr. Lam and his team.