Stretch Marks!!

[Guest]

r u alwayz this useless?

[Mai]

well I do try, it's hard being so useless sometimes. I havn't quite yet mastered the epitome of uselessness by leaving bitchy comments anonymously but I am working on it.

In the meantime, tell us, honey, where do you buy your TCA (as that was the question that was asked) or what new treatments are you trying?

[Guest]

bravo

[americangirl]

Mai--please just ignore that random guest that is posting.

And, I have heard that Makeupartistschoice.com has good TCA peel kits--but the people that used this kit was using it for Acne Scarring and not Stretch Marks. I got the glycolic acid peel kit from them && at first it seemed to not get much of a reaction on my skin but I have since tried J's footfiling method (lightly of course) before I apply it and I get a reaction.

And James Barnes refer to page 410 for a detailed description of starting a TCA peel treatment. A lot of the questions you will probably have are answered on that page and a few following pages. Also what sites have you looked at where people have gotten rid of stretch marks with TCA? I'd like to take a look at those places.

americangirl <3

[Kojiro]

Sorry if I'm ignorant at some point, just reading a lot of c**p around the internet about stretch marks is so depressing and misleading. Could you please bring me back to the basics as why can't the body differentiate normal tissue from scar tissue? As I know, then the body works in the way to survive, it doesn't care about the aesthetic look, so when the stretch mark occurs, it just seals it off as if to protect from blood loss. What can be done to help the body find that ''bad'' tissue? Also, why are there raised and sunken stretch marks? Is it just because some people's bodies generate more scar tissue than others? What would happen it a laser was used to melt the scar tissue away, would it end up looking like a regular, sunken stretch mark? I just think it is so simple, yet so complicated, because the science of using lasers like Fraxel and ActiveFX is that it removes the damaged tissue causing microscopic wounds for the body to heal itself, thus the damaged tissue is replaced by the body with new, undamaged tissue. What seems to be the problem with this, shouldn't it make the stretch mark go away, not just improve it?

There are actually some excellent questions.

First of all your body can tell the difference between scar tissue and normal tissue. This is why scars are remodelled over a peroid of up to two years after the injury first occurs. Essentially at some point your body says, "alright, that's good enough" and that is normally the scar that you are left with. Your body prioritizes things, and stretch marks are not as determental from an evolutionary point as we here believe they are from a psychosocial perspective.

So in using acids, we are largely targetting all the skin, not just the stretch marks. You are exfolating both scarred and normal skin, and hoping that when the skin replenishes what your burned off, it does so only with normal skin. Dr. Pickart claims that copper peptides cause your body to degrade scar tissue, I really don't believe this. I believe that the best thing about copper peptides is that they prevent the formation of scar tissue. So as you are removing the scar tissue, they should help assure that the skin replacing what you burned off is free of scars.

As far as laser goes, the problem with just burning away the scar tissue, is it will be replaced with more scar tissue. From what I understand, your body is able to improve the stretch marks because when you poke small holes into the scar tissue you trigger your body to produce more collagen which will help "puff" up the skin so that it isn't quite as sunken. In reality, you aren't really getting rid of the scar tissue, you are just making it closer to normal skin.

I personally feel that the future of stretch mark repair lies in laser technology, not acids. Although our current lasers are not 100% effective, they do still give some amazing results. And remember, 10 years ago there probably weren't any lasers at all. Medical research and medical success seems to grow expontentially. I imagine 5 years from now, the lasers available will be more than twice effective than they are now, 10 years from now they may be incredible.

Overall, the best advice I can give for now is to accept your stretch marks. If you want to try acids, copper peptides, skin brushing, etc., that is great. There are many people out there who have reporting phenominal results using these methods. If you don't believe these things work, that's fine. Having scars sucks, there's no arguing that, but it doesn't have to consume your life. There are plenty of people out there who are facing problems much worse than us. With stretch marks there are treatment options which are improving greatly with time, and there are many people who have just decided to come to terms with their stretch marks and have become stronger people as a result of this. If you are seriously depressed about your stretch marks, seek help. Depression is not going to help your situation at all, and it could reflect even deeper problems. I know this as I went through a fairly long peroid of depression myself. Its something that I eventually pulled out of (after about a year of chronic depression), but its never easy. My one regret now, is that I didn't look for help at the time, because it is out there, be it family, a friend, or a professional. You are not alone in this fight, remember that.

[Mai]

As for the copper peptides, I am actually experimenting injecting them into the stretch marks. (right now not a method I would recommend to anybody, am under medical supervision, please no one try this just yet) but if it turns out they do degrade scar tissue I should soon be in a position to know about it. Will keep you all updated.

[James Barnes]

Mai--please just ignore that random guest that is posting.

And, I have heard that Makeupartistschoice.com has good TCA peel kits--but the people that used this kit was using it for Acne Scarring and not Stretch Marks. I got the glycolic acid peel kit from them && at first it seemed to not get much of a reaction on my skin but I have since tried J's footfiling method (lightly of course) before I apply it and I get a reaction.

And James Barnes refer to page 410 for a detailed description of starting a TCA peel treatment. A lot of the questions you will probably have are answered on that page and a few following pages. Also what sites have you looked at where people have gotten rid of stretch marks with TCA? I'd like to take a look at those places.

americangirl <3

Well, actually the websites I found people who removed their stretch marks are either in russian or latvian. There were some sites in english that gave me hope, like this one:

http://talk.hairboutique.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=49690

But I think this was already discussed before, some people even calling the person trying 50% crazy. Then there was a YouTube video I found, maybe not related to stretch marks, but about a person tried the 50% TCA chemical peel and saw improvement in eczema:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3935W0ShMTY

The website I found the most answers about stretch marks (With all kinds of opinions), was in latvian, the answers from ''experts'' were that stretch marks can't be removed. Though, people who stated using TCA peels for their stretch marks claimed that they had completely cured them. There were some hope giving answers from beauty salon ''experts'' also. I found the website by google.lv writing in the word ''Strijas'' which is latvian for striae. Anyway, the site is:

www.medicine.lv

I'm sorry about the language barrier, because this site really can't prove to you that stretch marks can be removed, but it provided me with the confidence I need to get rid of those things. I guess, you'll just have to trust me...

[Guest]

As far as laser goes, the problem with just burning away the scar tissue, is it will be replaced with more scar tissue. From what I understand, your body is able to improve the stretch marks because when you poke small holes into the scar tissue you trigger your body to produce more collagen which will help "puff" up the skin so that it isn't quite as sunken. In reality, you aren't really getting rid of the scar tissue, you are just making it closer to normal skin.

hi kojiro,

isnt this exactly what needling does?

[James Barnes]

Platinum skin care has been highly reviewed here in terms of service and product quality. It is however based in the states making shipping a bit of a problem if you don't live there. Also, its possible to buy TCA off ebay but then you can't guarantee the quality of the product you buy...
Lastly, you said you are just starting out, it's probably better not to jump right in with TCA, again, read over the past 25 pages, you will find you should start out with glycolic to get your skin used to it.

Oh and btw, if any of you have anything to say to me, try and not me too much of a baby and not post anonymously, ok?

much love.

oh and btw, since I do live in Asia I had hopes that there was some strange, secret traditional treatment Asian women use for sm. I have been to several doctors who just look at me like uh-uh. but i will let you know if I find anything. If this continues I might actually get desperate enough to try beauty-tek, because I really can't find a single independent review of it.

So I read through some stuff, and page 410 basically explained everything. Just one tiny question. Where can I get the ingredients I need? Copper peptides, that Glycolic acid (Having trouble translating that) and Emu oil aren't easy to find in my country. Is there anything I can replace from this?

Also, someone please post a link to a site where I can buy the TCA chemical peel kit (25%). Just don't want to buy something fake and waste my time and money.

[Guest]

As far as laser goes, the problem with just burning away the scar tissue, is it will be replaced with more scar tissue. From what I understand, your body is able to improve the stretch marks because when you poke small holes into the scar tissue you trigger your body to produce more collagen which will help "puff" up the skin so that it isn't quite as sunken. In reality, you aren't really getting rid of the scar tissue, you are just making it closer to normal skin.

hi kojiro,

isnt this exactly what needling does?

Basically yes. But there are differences also. Lasers are thermal energy of different wave lenghts. This activates skin processes differently from a needle, which is purely physical damage.

[Tracy212]

what did the deepfx cost?

I paid $2,200 for the Active FX for the abdomen. The price quoted to me for the Deep FX by the same doctor was $3,995 for the abdomen, which she said she would knock off $1,000 since I had already tried the Active FX. I think I'm going to wait at this point.

I do believe the ultimate cure lies somewhere in laser technology, most likely with a combination of lasers and not just one laser (sort of like the article from the doctor in Philadelphia). We're just not completely there yet. My advice would be save your pennies now so that when that technology is perfected, you'll have stashed away the funds in advance. I also believe the current laser technology will work for some folks. The Active FX did get rid of some of my very small stretch marks and made noticable improvement to the larger ones. After everything I've tried over the last many, many years (creams, lasers, peels, vitamins.....never tried carboxy or needling), lasers definitely did the most for me, with creams (Trilastin SR) being the second runner up.

I'm not a believer in peels, though from my own experience, I do think they help blend the marks better even if they don't remove them. This can still be a great way to make some difference for stretch marks until the laser technology is perfected to remove them (or whatever technology is ultimately found to cure them).

Tracy

[James Barnes]

what did the deepfx cost?

I paid $2,200 for the Active FX for the abdomen. The price quoted to me for the Deep FX by the same doctor was $3,995 for the abdomen, which she said she would knock off $1,000 since I had already tried the Active FX. I think I'm going to wait at this point.

I do believe the ultimate cure lies somewhere in laser technology, most likely with a combination of lasers and not just one laser (sort of like the article from the doctor in Philadelphia). We're just not completely there yet. My advice would be save your pennies now so that when that technology is perfected, you'll have stashed away the funds in advance. I also believe the current laser technology will work for some folks. The Active FX did get rid of some of my very small stretch marks and made noticable improvement to the larger ones. After everything I've tried over the last many, many years (creams, lasers, peels, vitamins.....never tried carboxy or needling), lasers definitely did the most for me, with creams (Trilastin SR) being the second runner up.

I'm not a believer in peels, though from my own experience, I do think they help blend the marks better even if they don't remove them. This can still be a great way to make some difference for stretch marks until the laser technology is perfected to remove them (or whatever technology is ultimately found to cure them).

Tracy

Well, I really don't think there is really any point in waiting for ''the cure'', because I think curing stretch marks right now is not possible, because even these lasers, they don't repair tissue, they are only capable in eliminating them. I personally think that stretch marks don't have to be cured, I think they are supposed to be removed. And I heavily believe that chemical peels might be the answer, because in theory and from people's experiences it is the best thing possible. What do you mean by ''the ultimate cure''? Do you mean a treatment that works for everybody? I don't think that is possible. I think I read somewhere before that you tried peels. What and how much peels did you try? When results did you achieve?

[James Barnes]

Though I've read about what stretch marks are and how they form, I don't really know how they look in the skin. I personally imagine 3 layers of skin with a V shape scarring in through the epidermis to the dermis. Is this an accurate image I imagine? I mean, stretch marks don't penetrate all the dermis? I imagine that at least some part of the dermis beneath the stretch marks is left untouched, because the skin breaks from the upper side not the lower. Right? I think if the stretch mark went through all the dermis it would not stop there.

[Guest]

Though I've read about what stretch marks are and how they form, I don't really know how they look in the skin. I personally imagine 3 layers of skin with a V shape scarring in through the epidermis to the dermis. Is this an accurate image I imagine? I mean, stretch marks don't penetrate all the dermis? I imagine that at least some part of the dermis beneath the stretch marks is left untouched, because the skin breaks from the upper side not the lower. Right? I think if the stretch mark went through all the dermis it would not stop there.

Dude get a clue! If you don't know how stretchmarks look in the skin then how do you know you have them? Do you have something going on with your skin and you are just guessing its stretchmarks?

[king_fedor]

no offense to anyone here...i think all of you have some great knowledge on stretch marks and reading some of the pages actually gives me hope...

but i can honestly say that i stand ALONE in the war on stretch marks...when it comes to them, i am in my own league....i posted back on page 427 and for those that didnt read it, well basically im a 5'11, 21 year old male with deep purple stretch marks covering 40-50% of my back....i have them in other places as well...i have never in my life seen a case of marks quite as bad as mine...so no offense to any of you but until youve seen my case (i have a pic) then you shoudnt be complaining that much

atleast you all have the luxury of saying "theres always someone out there who has it worse than you" but i dont have that luxury. i truly believe im 1 in a billion and that i have probably the worst case of stretch marks ever seen. which is strange for a person my size who has never been obese or even fat at any point in his life...

ive had countless v-beams and none have worked...they havent even improved them at all to be honest...and ive tried tons of creams and they havent worked either....i have never tried any peels or any of the more advanced (and expensive) lasers...do you think i will have success with any of those methods?

i dont make much money, but i will sell anything i have to in order to raise the money for a $4000 deep fx laser treatment...to me its worth it. how about tca peels and glycolic? what do you think?