Indented forehead shingles aftermath :(

[SilentJ]

Hi everyone

5 weeks ago I had a flare up of shingles on my forehead and its left some damage all the scabs have now fallen off but one in particular has left a very unsightly indent close to the middle of my forehead. My doctor seems to think it is still healing but nothing has changed in the last two weeks...

Can derma rollers help with indents like this? What would you suggest I try?

Thanks

                     

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[Arachne]

See article which Sarah Vaughter refers to in her reply. I shall be interested to hear if you try the suction treatment and if it works for you. I'll post any follow-up comments about my own case here too (if that's OK by you!), as it seems sensible to amalgamate the two threads. I think we should report our results here, as there is so little useful information about treatment for shingles scars on the web. Most medical sites say that shingles lesions don't leave scars. This is utter nonsense. They definitely do, especially on the face, even if one has taken the greatest care not to touch or scratch the scabs. Scarring depends on the severity/depth of the infection.

I am using a dermastamp in conjunction with the suction technique described in the article. My suction tool is the kind of vacuum pump that sucks the air out of wine bottles! I tried syringes but they were too small and not powerful enough. The wine-bottle air sucker is just perfect. My indented scars are very similar to yours. (I have two large ones, left from shingles that I had in October 2011.) I have only started this combined treatment about three weeks ago, but my impression is that I can see a tiny difference already (measurable in microns rather than millimetres!). I am hopeful that it will work eventually but will take a long time. I only use the dermastamp once every three weeks, as advised on this site, and I am suctioning every day from the third day following dermastamping.

In your case, it is very early days, and at five weeks, you can't expect much change yet. My scars are now six months old, and although they are no longer red (except immediately after dermastamping) they are still almost as deeply indented as they were to start with, despite using scar gel, scar plasters, and massage. The suctioning has definitely raised them by a tiny amount.

[SilentJ]

Hi

Thank you for the links and combining the threads, I will certainly be posting updates and pictures over the coming months, and if you could do the same that would be fantastic

After giving it some thought - I think maybe the suction technique is the best bet. Did you use needles horizontally underneath to separate the scar fibrotic strands combined with suction? I'm definitely going to buy some needles - I imagine it is extremely painful but the only way for improved results.

Thanks for the bottle suction pump tip - it looks perfect for these size of scars. Can I ask how you go about treating yours please? What size needle stamp you have? How long you stamp and use suction for? Do you really have to stamp every 3 weeks? I would have thought every 4-5 days would have been the one..? Do you have any pictures you could please post of scars 3-5 months ago and your scar today??

Thanks

[Arachne]

I'm not brave enough to use needles, so I use only a dermastamp. For scarring like ours, the dermastamp must have 1.5 mm pins (minimum). Those are pretty long pins, so the three-week frequency is recommended as these pins penetrate quite deeply into the underlying layers of the skin, for which more recovery time is required, hence the three-week interval. If you use a dermastamp with shorter pins you can use the dermastamp more often, but the longer pin is better for deep scars like ours.

This is my suctioning technique: I attach the rubber "cork" to the pump and press the end of the cork firmly against the scar. You need to use the kind of pump where it is possible to attach the cork to it, otherwise it would be difficult to keep the various bits airtight. It helps to use an oil on the skin to form a good seal. I pump one area a few times and then move it to an adjacent area. I judge the correct length of time by how red my skin gets and whether any bruising appears underneath. If the skin gets very red and/or haematoma starts to appear I know it's time to stop. I guess I do the suctioning for three or four minutes before going to bed at night.

It's important to wait a couple of days after dermastamping before starting the suctioning.

I have no pictures of the scars, I'm afraid (I only have one of the scabs during the horrible disease!). But now that I have an iPad, I'll take a picture and post it here in the next few days. Meantime, here's a pic of the type of vacuum pump I'm using:

                     

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[SarahVaughter]

Thank you, Arachne, for your replies and suggestions.

Can you please post your great idea and advice how to use it (the wine bottles' vacuum pump) in the suctioning thread? I have been looking for some improvised solution for suctioning for a long time because the professional machine used in the study is way too expensive for home use.

To SilentJ:

Wait two more weeks. Then start using either the single needles or a 1.5 mm dermastamp (very suitable in your case) and the suction method. Stamp aggressively every three weeks and use the suction method in between the stamping sessions.

There is a lot of missing tissue in the scars and it takes a long time to rebuild it.

UPDATE:
We are now selling a suction pump: https://http://shop.owndoc.com/product-info.php?suction-pump-scars-pid212.html

[SilentJ]

Thank you for all of your advice, i'll report back in 3-4 weeks with a picture.

[Arachne]

Hi Sarah,

I'll try to find time to transfer the info about the wine bottles' vacuum pump at some stage in the future, but I can't do it just now as I'm up against a deadline for work. Feel free to quote me or link to this thread in the meantime! I just dropped in here today to add a picture of my two worst scars as they now appear, six months after the infection that caused them. It's really difficult to take a decent photo of one's forehead, though! The skin tone has evened out so they are less noticeable than they were, but they are still pretty indented. I'll try to post a new picture in a few months' time. As you say, it takes a long time to rebuild these holes!

                     

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[SilentJ]

I do hope my scar pigments like yours - its hardly noticeable in the pic and with such a close up to!

Where yours as deep as mine initially? Do think mine will mostly fill themselves in on there own over the next month or two? My Shingles rash staretd March 20th... guess its still very early days

[Arachne]

Mine were definitely as deep as yours initially, and very red too. I could still feel the indentations when I passed my finger over them up to a few weeks ago, but now since doing the suction, they have begun to feel much smoother. You need patience. Take care to protect it from the sun, and the pigmentation should improve in a few months.

[Dewydewey]

I purchased a wine pump today & am going to try this in

conjunction with the dermastamp.  I pricked my skin two

days ago so I'll use the pump tomorrow.

I am feeling really optimistic that this will help lessen the

appearance of my old acne scars.

Thank you for posting the picture of the wine pump Arachne

and the Vaughters for having this company.....

[Dewydewey]

I purchased a wine bottle vacuum pump for the suction method and have a question for anyone that has tried this technique.  

My skin is very red after suctioning and I wanted to know if this is what you experienced.  My skin looks the way it does when I use the dermastamp-I can see little pricks in my skin and in these holes I can see the pinpoint bleeding marks (I stamped my skin 4 days ago)  It's as if I have pulled the blood back to the surface?  There is no bruising or hematoma, though, but my skin looks as if it were freshly rolled.   Any reassuring words will help,  I'm so afraid to break capillaries or damage my skin.

Thank you!

[SarahVaughter]

It is completely normal that the skin is very red after the suctioning, including reappearance of pinpoint blood marks that originate from needling /stamping.

     

  From the study:

   

  "Effective suctioning caused oedema and haemorrhages in the subcised scars and led to ELEVATION OF DEPRESSING SCARS ABOVE THE SKIN SURFACE' (Fig. 1f,g)."

 

https://http://www.owndoc.com/pdf/therapy-in-treatment-of-atrophic-acne-scars.pdf

   You did not even get to the stage of edema and hemorrhages but you cannot expect there will be absolutely no redness after suctioning.

[Dewydewey]

Thank you, Sarah.  These are the reassuring words I needed to hear.

[Arachne]

I have just posted some more details over on the suction thread.

[SilentJ]

Ok heres an update after 1 month

I'll continue to post an update monthly. I am stamping every 7-10 days and using 1 min of suction for a few days after stamping with the bottle pump.

                     

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