Weed
Hamlossus
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2018
- Posts
- 3,740
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First, a little story for whoever's interested. My skin was in ultra-bad condition since I was about 16. My whole face was covered in severe cystic acne, which left lots of atrophic (and one hypertrophic) scars. I tried every single thing imaginable to get rid of the acne, including benzoyl peroxide. That nasty chemical damaged my skin texture badly and gave me one sebaceous hyperplasia (which isn’t technically a hypertrophic scar but basically is) right in the middle of my forehead. After that, I became very skeptical of any topical “medicine” for skin (they’re all still useless except one, plus sunscreen). At 18, I used Accutane (best thing ever), and it basically got rid of my acne.
When reading online, especially back then, I got the impression that it was impossible to fix already-damaged skin except with lasers. I did try lasers a couple of times, but they literally didn’t do anything; it was a waste of money.
Fast forward 7 years: acne started coming back. At first it was mild, but as it progressed and got worse, I hopped on Accutane again at the first sign of cystic acne because I knew what was coming. I became acne-free again.
The sebaceous hyperplasia was so fucking annoying. It was small yet a bit yellow, right in the middle of my forehead. So I went to another dermatologist who did about 6 cryotherapy rounds, one session each week. That didn’t completely get rid of it, but it became 3x smaller, yet it still had color and was annoying enough.
I then decided to give tretinoin a try because my online buddy was praising it. At first I went for an overpriced “premium brand” 0.05% tretinoin cream. I’m not sure if my skin was improving or not, possibly not, lol. I was on it for about 3 months but then had to stop because I decided to try Juvelook (injectable collagen booster), and I had to pause tret 1 week before and 1 week after the injections. It did help slightly until the HA from Juvelook evaporated and my skin started looking bad again. I found it quite useless… but that’s my personal opinion. Perhaps it’s good; maybe I just needed more sessions. I don’t know.
After about a month, I traveled to a maxillofacial surgeon, and meanwhile I was there I didn’t apply my 0.05% tretinoin. Instead, I decided to order 0.10% tret (the most powerful dose) in gel form from AllDayChemist while preparing for travel and waiting out the 1-week post-Juvelook pause.
When I came home about 2 weeks ago, I started applying the 0.10% tretinoin, and the result was incredible, just wow, I am amazed. The results I’m going to post will be only 1 week and 2 weeks after starting this dose. It works so fast; it’s actually super impressive.
TLDR
Had lots of atrophic acne scars, sebaceous hyperplasia in the middle of my forehead. Cryotherapy helped reduce hyperplasia's size by 3x, tretinoin ALMOST finished it. It's still there but looks like it's on its way to finally disappear as you will see in the pics. All meanwhile tretinoin also improved my atrophic acne scars and overall skin texture and quality.
What lessons did I learn? Tretinoin is the only thing that works in improving skin, better than laser treatments, better than "benzoyl peroxide", better than everything. Sunscreen is really important to prevent outside damage. Cryotherapy works on reducing raised scars but not fully in my case, it works better on other people. Juvelook turned out to be useless, but I am saying that only after 1 session. Perhaps it's incredible too and I actually plan on injecting more in the future, once every year just to stimulate collagen in deep layers.
When reading online, especially back then, I got the impression that it was impossible to fix already-damaged skin except with lasers. I did try lasers a couple of times, but they literally didn’t do anything; it was a waste of money.
Fast forward 7 years: acne started coming back. At first it was mild, but as it progressed and got worse, I hopped on Accutane again at the first sign of cystic acne because I knew what was coming. I became acne-free again.
The sebaceous hyperplasia was so fucking annoying. It was small yet a bit yellow, right in the middle of my forehead. So I went to another dermatologist who did about 6 cryotherapy rounds, one session each week. That didn’t completely get rid of it, but it became 3x smaller, yet it still had color and was annoying enough.
I then decided to give tretinoin a try because my online buddy was praising it. At first I went for an overpriced “premium brand” 0.05% tretinoin cream. I’m not sure if my skin was improving or not, possibly not, lol. I was on it for about 3 months but then had to stop because I decided to try Juvelook (injectable collagen booster), and I had to pause tret 1 week before and 1 week after the injections. It did help slightly until the HA from Juvelook evaporated and my skin started looking bad again. I found it quite useless… but that’s my personal opinion. Perhaps it’s good; maybe I just needed more sessions. I don’t know.
After about a month, I traveled to a maxillofacial surgeon, and meanwhile I was there I didn’t apply my 0.05% tretinoin. Instead, I decided to order 0.10% tret (the most powerful dose) in gel form from AllDayChemist while preparing for travel and waiting out the 1-week post-Juvelook pause.
When I came home about 2 weeks ago, I started applying the 0.10% tretinoin, and the result was incredible, just wow, I am amazed. The results I’m going to post will be only 1 week and 2 weeks after starting this dose. It works so fast; it’s actually super impressive.
TLDR
Had lots of atrophic acne scars, sebaceous hyperplasia in the middle of my forehead. Cryotherapy helped reduce hyperplasia's size by 3x, tretinoin ALMOST finished it. It's still there but looks like it's on its way to finally disappear as you will see in the pics. All meanwhile tretinoin also improved my atrophic acne scars and overall skin texture and quality.
Before:
My skin looked more or less like that 2 weeks ago except the seb hyperplasia was smaller.
2 Weeks after starting 0.10% tretinoin dose:
Yes. I am sorry for not the exact same lighting as the before one was taken outside in good weather but I try to keep it as fair as possible without frauding, this pic was taken under direct light to try and contour all scars possible.
This time EXACT SAME lighting. Quality is a bit worse in the before pic, but even then you can see my skin was way worse. Look at the temple and below.
Before:
Now that's about 1 week after starting tret:
Below "cheekbone
" is mostly redness after shaving clean for the first time in a decade lol. I don't have scars there.
This is not the end, with tretinoin and that dose I expect final results in 10-12 months. It's just amazing at how fast it works. Truly the only topical skin cream/gel that actually works. Rest of them are useless unless it's some tretinoin competitor which uses same ingredients. The cherry on top is to use also sunscreen to prevent any outside damage.
My skin looked more or less like that 2 weeks ago except the seb hyperplasia was smaller.
2 Weeks after starting 0.10% tretinoin dose:
Yes. I am sorry for not the exact same lighting as the before one was taken outside in good weather but I try to keep it as fair as possible without frauding, this pic was taken under direct light to try and contour all scars possible.
This time EXACT SAME lighting. Quality is a bit worse in the before pic, but even then you can see my skin was way worse. Look at the temple and below.
Before:
Now that's about 1 week after starting tret:
Below "cheekbone
" is mostly redness after shaving clean for the first time in a decade lol. I don't have scars there.This is not the end, with tretinoin and that dose I expect final results in 10-12 months. It's just amazing at how fast it works. Truly the only topical skin cream/gel that actually works. Rest of them are useless unless it's some tretinoin competitor which uses same ingredients. The cherry on top is to use also sunscreen to prevent any outside damage.
What lessons did I learn? Tretinoin is the only thing that works in improving skin, better than laser treatments, better than "benzoyl peroxide", better than everything. Sunscreen is really important to prevent outside damage. Cryotherapy works on reducing raised scars but not fully in my case, it works better on other people. Juvelook turned out to be useless, but I am saying that only after 1 session. Perhaps it's incredible too and I actually plan on injecting more in the future, once every year just to stimulate collagen in deep layers.
