As of February 6, 2026, the last of my keloids has been officially treated!

We’re now waiting to see how it responds without treatment for at least 6 months, which I’ve gone at least 2-3 months without before, so my dermatologist and I are optimistic.

This is my 20+ year journey treating my keloids:

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Table of Contents

What is a Keloid?

A keloid is a type of raised scar that produces too much collagen beyond the original injury.

Keloids are more common in people of Asian and African descent and tend to develop on areas such as the chest, shoulders, jawline, and ears.

My History with Keloids

Jawline

I have suffered from severe acne since I was 11 years old and probably when I was around 15-16, I would casually pop the pimples along my jawline with my nails, which eventually formed into keloids.

I didn’t know at the time though as I thought they were cystic acne.

I remember a traumatic experience at a spa owned by an old Korean woman who insisted they needed to be stabbed and cut into because she thought it was cystic acne and that the core needed to be extracted.

Don’t trust fucking idiots.

But, the jawline keloids were the easiest to treat in my experience. Thank god!

Chest

I had a raised mole/birthmark that was removed via laser. It scabbed over and when it fell off, my keloid was born. Boo!

This is the one I was most embarrassed by because it was just there.

The keloids along my jawline blended in with the horrible acne, but one on my chest was front and center.

On the bright side, I always covered it up so my chest has aged gracefully with beautifully pale skin and no sun spots 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway, this area has the longest history because I just couldn’t get consistent enough treatment.

My Keloid Treatment Timeline

Before we go into the actual keloid treatments I’ve tried, this is my on-and-off history:

2006: Chest keloid formed
2007: Went to Korea for 3 months in the summer and got kenalog injections every week. Keloid would grow back because the US was not privy to keloid treatments yet.
2008: Went to Korea for 3 months in the summer and got kenalog injections every week.
2009: Went to Korea for 3 months in the summer and got kenalog injections every week.
2010: Jawline keloids formed. Went to Korea for 3 months in the summer and got kenalog injections for both chest and jawline every week. This time, the kenalog injections were done only on one side of my chest keloid, so when I went back home, the keloid grew beyond the side that was not treated as much.
2011-2014: I would get kenalog injections on-and-off at my school’s doctors’ offices but only to subside the itching.
2014-2018: US doctors finally started having the same answers as those in Korea! I was actually looking into cryotherapy, which is mostly done on the ears so I didn’t qualify. But, that’s how I found Dr. Pimple Popper‘s office before she blew up on Instagram. I ended up consistently seeing her Physician Assistant Erin Jensen, who now owns her own successful medspa practice now called The Treatment Skin Boutique, but Erin set up my treatment plan that I took over to my other doctors in the future. My jawline keloids were gone by 2018.
2019-2020: I moved to Washington DC and started going to Integrated Dermatology because they had the type of laser I needed per my so-far successful treatment with Erin. I saw the Medical Director at the time, Dr. Agnes Chang, and then started seeing Physician Assistant Nicole Masson in 2025.
2020-2022: I stopped laser treatments from 2020-2022 because of the pandemic. I started going to Nurse Practitioner Chanda Copeland of Advanced Dermatology to get steroid injections to subside the itching and treat the re-growth.
2022-2023: Once the world opened up again, I started getting injections every two weeks plus laser treatments every month. One side of my keloid was not responding anymore and so Chanda switched to a stronger type of injection. At this point, the keloid was flat, but we would keep “chasing” it because it would itch and grow in between appointments despite how aggressive we were.
2023: I got radiation treatment to “kill” the underlying keloid cells that were causing the rapid regrowth.
2023-2026: We were able to flatten out the keloid again and eventually stop injections! I continued laser every month and did the “weaker” kenalog injections as needed.

Fuuuu — writing this all out… it’s been a long time coming.

Keloid Treatments I’ve Tried

Kenalog Injections

Kenalog injections, also referred to as corticosteroid or steroid injections (not the bodybuilding kind!), reduces collagen production, which is why they’re used to treat keloids. This is what I solely used until 2014.

I’m used to needles at this point, so I don’t need numbing anymore. But, when I first started, I did. And please ask for numbing injections, not numbing cream; numbing cream doesn’t do shit.

Also, ask for kenalog injections with a Botox needle because they’re very thin. Some practices just use one type of needle, which if they do Botox, then you don’t have to ask every time.

This is especially helpful when you start foregoing numbing injections, which I’ll tell you why you would want to in the next section.

I will say that when you first start kenalog injections, you are in pain afterwards because you can sort of feel the collagen breaking down.

It’s especially uncomfortable and honestly hurts like hell along the jawline because your lower face just hurts so badly — almost like a burning sensation.

I remember one time just screaming and yelling my car because it hurt so badly. But, that’s only happened once.

Cortisone cream helped, but it didn’t take the pain away to make it not hurt.

Sorry to scare you a bit, but I would still do it again because… I was desperate to get rid of my keloids!

You also have to be careful not to get these injections done too frequently because it thins your skin and can even cause depressions since collagen is being targeted.

Thankfully, once you stop, your skin will typically go back to normal, which it did for me without the keloid getting worse (but this depended on the stage of treatment).

There were times it was a bit overdone and we had to stop, but after about 2-3 months, we’d be good again and resume treatment.

VBeam Laser

Vbeam laser is a type of pulse dye laser that helps get rid of redness by targeting the blood vessels. The blood vessels in your keloid “feed” it, so we’re basically cutting off the food supply!

2014-2018: As the keloids on my jawline and chest were flattening, Erin and I stopped numbing injections because numbing restricts blood flow; less blood vessels means less effective Vbeam laser.

That’s why using a thin Botox needle was very much necessary for my comfort because I was going to tolerate a lot. Thankfully, Erin is the type of medical professional who doesn’t disregard women’s pain (because shockingly a lot of female providers do just as much as the male ones).

2025-2026: As my keloid journey was coming to an end, I found that my chest keloid didn’t respond to Vbeam as well as before regarding the redness. At this point, my chest keloid was very flat and I found Vbeam was just a hair too much for my skin, which was fairly thin at this stage.

This next laser is what address my redness much better despite it not being designed for that!

Fraxel Laser

Fraxel is a non-ablative skin resurfacing laser, meaning it heats the skin to stimulate collagen, which I know is ironic considering keloids are caused by an overproduction of collagen.

By the way, there are non-ablative and ablative lasers; you can think of them as superficial and aggressive. You don’t want to use an aggressive laser with keloid-able skin!

Anyway, because the blood vessels in my keloid were essentially dying off, keloid collagen wasn’t being produced as much anymore, if at all.

At this point, I’ve had years of kenalog injections and Vbeam treatments that were addressing the keloid collagen, but they left my skin lumpy.

In theory, Fraxel would gently stimulate the area to smooth my skin and in practice, this was the case thankfully!

I switched off between Vbeam and Fraxel every other month.

Although at this point the keloids along my jawline were gone, I did use Fraxel to smooth out that area; I stopped all together around 2024 or 2025 since I was satisfied with its progress.

Towards the end of 2025 and into 2026, I would exclusively use Fraxel because I found my chest keloid would be less red by my next appointment compared to when I used Vbeam.

In my head, I think Fraxel would take off a layer of skin and some of its redness? Vbeam didn’t make it worse, but Fraxel was just much better.

This decision was played by ear and wasn’t something we had anticipated. But, if it wasn’t broke, we didn’t try to fix it!

Fluorouracil-5 Injections

Okay, the timeline is getting a little convoluted but Fluorouracil-5 (5-FU) was something we added into the mix in temporary place of kenalog injections.

I believe 5-FU was initially developed to stop cancer cells from reproducing. It’s great for keloids because it breaks down the collagen cells that are overproducing.

If you recall in my long ass timeline, I was in Korea and only the right side of my chest keloid was mainly injected back in the summer of 2014.

I really couldn’t tell you why. I was in a factory type of doctor’s office and I didn’t notice this was happening until the end of summer.

When I went back home, my chest keloid re-grew towards the left, where it wasn’t treated. As a result, when we flash forward to 2022 and 2023, the left side of my keloid was hard as a rock!

Chanda thinks the collagen produced there was tightly packed because of the new growth that happened nearly 8 years prior. But, it wasn’t responding to the kenalog injections anymore.

We were at a bit of a loss but luckily she was discussing this with a colleague who suggested using 5-FU.

AND IT WORKED! I don’t know who Chanda spoke with but she’s a real one and really saved us.

It softened that hard as a rock part of my keloid and eventually we weened off of it and switched back to kenalog injections because again, we don’t want to over treat and depress the healthy skin surrounding the keloid.

This is something to keep in your back pocket if you’re hitting a roadblock like I was.

But still, the chest keloid was growing back by the second week even though it was softer…

Superficial Radiation Therapy (SRT-100)

That’s when I looked into Superficial Radiation Therapy (SRT-100).

I was in a Facebook group about keloids and a lot of people were talking about Lexington Plastic Surgeons (LPS) who apparently specialize in keloid removal via surgery. The reviews were mixed.

Personally, I’m completely against surgery to address keloids. Of course, everyone’s keloids are different and some won’t respond to the treatments that worked for mine, but that’s just my belief.

I have gone to countless doctors who specialize in skin and scars over the years and they all are against surgery for keloids because they grow back worse (as can always be the case, but was especially so 10+ years ago) so that’s just what’s ingrained in me.

Some nurse practitioners and plastic surgeons have suggested it to me but I never considered it because they’re not experts. Sorry, not sorry!

But, an LPS office was close to me, so I set up a consultation because when I looked at their website, they called out radiation treatments so I was curious to learn more about it.

Basically, SRT-100 “kills” (lots of “killing” mentioned in this post lmao) the underlying cells of your keloid so there’s no regrowth.

I asked if I could just do the radiation with them and forego the surgery; and I could, but I would still have to pay the full cost of $10,000 and they don’t take insurance. GOODBYE~

After my consultation, I researched SRT-100 and found a local dermatologist office not only had it, but also took my insurance!

Thank you LPS for at least giving me this information, but I do NOT recommend them.

Surgery was also covered by my insurance at this provider, but again I refused it. I got three rounds of radiation and only paid $175 for all three treatments, plus my initial consultation and follow-up appointment.

Because I didn’t do surgery, the before and after wasn’t dramatic. The medical assistant was a confused, but the dermatologist said everything is good.

And they were!

Before radiation, my chest keloid would itch from regrowth after only a week or two, but after radiation, it scaled back to the typical 4 weeks.

This allowed my normal treatments to eventually to “kill” the rest of my keloid and the itching stopped all together.

Products that helped my keloids

Cortisone Cream

Back when I first started treatment, my keloid would itch all the time, even when things were progressing nicely.

Over-the-counter cortisone cream helped subside the itching as needed.

I stopped using it… a long ass time ago since I found a treatment plan that worked really well for me. But, it was very helpful when I did need it.

Silicone Patches

Silicone is an occlusive, meaning it traps moisture. For some reason, it’s great for healing scars and when you’re treating keloids, you can sort of control how it flattens.

Plus, if there’s regrowth, then you can similarly dictate how smooth it grows back.

To be honest, I was really bad at using silicone patches for the entirety of my treatment. Towards the end, I was much better at it because I’m at the end! Haha, so I’m more motivated and excited to do so.

There are silicone gels but I prefer non-reusable silicone patches because I never know when the gel has worn off and I think the pressure from the bandage helps. They also stick on better than the reusable ones.

Personally, I’ll keep them on for days before switching it out. And there’s maybe about one or two re-sticks too. I’m not too prescriptive about it.

And I guess you don’t even have to use it for most of the treatment? In fact, maybe I wouldn’t have done Fraxel, which we found addressed redness better than Vbeam towards the end.

Concluding my keloid journey

Towards the end, maybe there’s like a liiitle bump that Nicole and I are keen to get rid of with one more kenalog injection, but I think the silicone patch is doing it’s job for now.

If you recall, I’ve had acne since I was 11 and I haven’t been able to go on Accutane this entire time because of the laser treatments. So, I’ll be on that soon and in 6-9 months, we’ll see how my chest keloid is doing because… my jawline keloids have been long gone and never came back so I’m optimistic!

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram @thedianecollective 🙂

How I Treated My Keloids: My Experience With Injections, Laser, and Radiation