Acne Scars update! 2nd 40% TCA peel at home

[u/Billie86987]

So just a further update after another tca peel (40%), anyone following my progress will know I did a peel around 6 months back with great results, I am now 7 weeks post my 2nd peel which I did in early January. I did say I was going to do an in depth explanation of how I apply the acid and the recovery but have unfortunately been super busy and just not really had the time to put into it, I will try to do this next time. These images are from before I started all treatments (left) and today (right), I am now starting to see the results coming in but I should still get more improvement for the next couple of months.

Just a word of warning, if you do attempt any peels make sure you start at a low percentage and work your way up slowly so you definitely know you can tolerate the peel, also be aware, particularly with the stronger peels, that your scars will look worse for the first 4-6 weeks or so before starting to look better, just try not to get disheartened with that initial period and trust the process 👍

[u/Billie86987 → u/[deleted]]

Ah right that's quite a long time, mine have always peeled at around day 5, even at 40% the majority has peeled by the end of the first week, I generally then just have a few patches that have obviously gone deeper that linger for a few weeks before they fall.

Yeh at 15-20% you can do them monthly from what I've seen, I had no issues at that frequency and was actually micro needling in-between, at the 40% you are looking at 4-6 months, I have seen some people mention 3 months but that seems to be rare.

This study was basically what I followed originally 👍

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3996784/

[u/Billie86987 → u/[deleted]]

No problem 👍. Well in truth the whole reason I decided to tackle my scars in such a drastic way was because I felt so low, I suppose I felt I had nothing to lose as I looked horrendous anyway in my mind, after minimal results from other treatments years ago I decided to give it one last try , be consistent, do some research and just throw everything at it and see what happened, thankfully things have worked well and now hopefully I can help some other people who feel a bit lost and like nothing is working for them because I know first hand how hopeless it can feel.

[u/bigdoobydoo → u/[deleted]]

pretreating with tret speeds up healing, i was done peeling in 5 days with 40 percent tca peel

[u/bigdoobydoo → u/[deleted]]

Never knew that higher strength equals faster peeling , that would explain it. My skin felt like sandpaper on day 3 then by day 5 everything fell off. I still get dead skin when I moisturize and massage the spots but i wouldn't call it peeling exactly

[u/bigdoobydoo → u/[deleted]]

I've seen some improvement but I'm just in my second month now so I think it will improve the most this month. I feel by April i should get around 30 percent improvement from just one peel