James Barnes4 wrote: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.
Really, sorry If I expressed myself incorrectly, I'm not from an english speaking country but I'm trying my best to write correctly. I don't think YOU were rude, or ignorant and not one of the ''fat porn site people''. Again, sorry, no offense intended. I was refering to the guests, who just come in and say ''stretch marks can't be removed'' and stuff like that, which I think are idiots. And yes, I haven't read the last 10-25 pages thoroughly, what can I say, I'm a guy which is a synonym for lazy. 
