To determine a patient’s suitability for the treatment, the doctor needs to take into consideration the type of skin, medical history and colouring of the patient-to-be. The procedure is usually carried out in the doctor’s surgery, although it might also be performed at the hospital or at an outpatient surgical centre, depending on your doctor’s preferences in addition to your own. The procedure may be performed in combination with other resurfacing treatments, e.g. microdermabrasion, laser resurfacing and chemical peels.

photo credit: Norrel Blair

The actual acne dermabrasion procedure is usually performed using a hand-held electronic instrument (about the size of a pencil) which has a rotating sanding tool which contains diamond particles or a wire brush. Some surgeons will give sedation before whole-face dermabrasions while others may use local anaesthesia if the area to be treated is limited , e.g. a single scar. After the treatment , the treated area may be covered with a wet or waxy covering, an ointment, and/or a dry covering.

Not all individuals will have the same outcomes after treatments. Patients who have lighter skin tones usually have the best results from this type of treatment than patients who have darker skin. For example, those patients who have dark skin tones may find that their skin becomes permanently blotchy or discoloured following their dermabrasions.

If you are thinking about having this type of procedure, you should bear in mind that you will probably not be able to see the true results of the procedure until at least several weeks after surgery. Following the procedures the patient’s skin is likely to be red, and swelling of the skin is common. Patients may also have difficulty when trying to talk or eat. Any pain experienced after the process should treatable with pain-relieving medicines and any swelling is likely to begin to reduce starting from several days to a week after.

After this type of process, the most important thing to do is protect the treated skin areas from exposure to sun until the skin’s pigment has returned to normal. This might take as much as a year after the treatments have been carried out.

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