LinTK

Hi All:

I'm new here, & have a question.

I am 54 yrs old. I had great skin until I turned 21, when I developed cystic acne on my face. Most of the scarring isn't that bad, except for one large lump on my left jawline. It measures about 1.5" long X about 1" from bottom to top.

The problem I have w/ this scar is two-fold: (1) It's so large, it actually weighs down the left side of my face, which causes wrinkles at the side of my mouth & left side of my chin. And, (2) While I don't know that it's "infected" anymore, it's still definitely active. Horrible, noxious, nasty crud comes out of it every single day. Sometimes, all I have to do it brush the side of my face w/ my hand, & I can actually *smell* it. Needless to say, it makes me very self-conscious.

In the past 33 yrs, I've done accutane (2ce, which it was new), steroid injections, various topical meds, even surgery once, to try to scrape ouf some of the layers of scar tissue under the surface of the skin.....which was a huge mistake, as when it healed, one of the stitches came loose, & now I have not only a large, ugly cyst, but one w/ a hole in the top part of it. *Very* attractive. <snort>

My question is: Is it possible to remove this thing from my face, even though it's still producing awful crud, & at the same time, tighten up the skin that's become stretched out around my mouth & chin, from bearing the weight of this thing for 33 yrs?

Thanks for your input.

Lin

LinTK

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, then - nevermind!

robyne00

Cysitc acne almost always leaves scars. Have you tried laser treatment, chemical peels, or microdermabrasion?

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LinTK

I am back, long after this original post was done.

I had plastic surgery to remove the large cystic acne scar/cyst from my face, & it went terribly wrong. I now have a fish hook-shaped scar on my face, about 2" long (closer to 3" if you straightened it out), & where the scar curves at the top, it became horribly infected after surgery. While the lump has gone down somewhat, it is still, after almost 2 mos, pumping out foul-smelling, oily, beige-colored gunk. I was on antibiotics almost continually since the surgery (4 Feb) until this past Mon, when I saw my surgeon for the 6th time since surgery. He proclaimed it as being "not infected anymore", that he can't see anything coming out of it (which there *is*), & that it "looks good". The lump is rather hard, & when I asked him about that, he said I could massage it, cos it's probably a "nodule" that I can break up manually. Either that, or "I could cut you again" (yes, this is a board certified plastic surgeon!!!). Yesterday afternoon, what I thought looked like a small spot of dry skin showed up on it; I used my tweezers to pull it off, but it wasn't dry skin - I ended up pulling a hard plug, not quite 1/8" long, out of this lump, which was followed by a small gush of blood.

This thing looks 100 times worse than it did before surgery, it hurts, stuff is coming out of it, & my surgeon doesn't seem to *see* any of this! I don't know what to do. I want him to make it right (I thought about going to another surgeon, but going through the insurance hassles again - ugh). What can I do to fix this?

LinTK

Update, as of late this afternoon.....the incision appears to be *coming apart* at the top!! The seam (for lack of a better term) is open more than it was, & it's bleeding.

:-(.......