treatyourscars Scarring is a natural occurrence after surgery, as scarring helps strengthen healing tissues. Excessive scar tissue and deep layers can significantly reduce function and mobility a few months after surgery. For example, a person may develop scar tissue internally after knee replacement surgery.
When a surgical wound occurs, scar tissue quickly forms in the body. However, when the body creates scar tissue after an injury, a person may not experience pain in the scar tissue until much later. Internal scar tissue can form as a result of surgery (such as abdominal adhesions) and some diseases such as Asherman’s syndrome and Peyronie’s disease. Learning to care for scar tissue can improve the outcome of surgery.
Read also: Can I Put Cicaplast On My Surgical Scars?
Home remedies
Home remedies can help a person manage or reduce the pain, swelling, and healing of scar tissue. Massage therapy can also help break down and reshape scar tissue. Laser therapy won’t remove scars, but it can reduce pain and itching and may improve a person’s range of motion.
Surface treatments such as microdermabrasion, laser or phototherapy, or chemical peels can also improve the appearance of scars. The procedure softens and smoothes the skin and can improve the appearance of scars.
Read also: How Long For Surgical Scars To Flatten
Treatment may reduce the size or appearance of the scar, but it will never completely disappear. The scar may disappear so much that it can barely be seen, but it will never completely disappear.
There are three different stages of healing, and your scar will look different in each stage. Scars can take up to 1 year to fully mature and go through four stages of healing. In younger patients or those with more developed skin, it can take anywhere from eighteen months to two years for the scar to mature. Studies show that scarring can persist for up to 1 year after surgery.
Sutures that are too long can leave marks on the skin and sometimes scars. Wounds with infection take longer to heal, making you more susceptible to dehiscence.
If you are concerned that the stitches may come apart, check how well your wound is healing. If you think the wound is reopening, or if you notice symptoms of suture separation, contact your doctor or surgeon right away. If your wound may be scarring, see your doctor for a checkup.
It is important to monitor the progress of the wound as any hole can lead to infection. Opening a wound can be a minor problem, such as when a suture becomes loose or a very small section of the incision begins to loosen. If the incision opens slightly, it may not be a major problem, but call your surgeon’s office to be sure.
This can also be a big problem if the entire incision is open, especially if you can see the underlying tissue or if it starts to protrude from the incision. Also, the opening can lead to evisceration, which is a much more serious condition that occurs when the wound reopens and the internal organs come out of the incision. Sometimes the incision is closed with internal sutures (sutures below the surface of the skin).
After surgery, your doctor will tell you how to care for the incision. Caring for your incision after surgery is important to your health. Strengthening the wound can help prevent the incision from opening after surgery.
If a scar forms, careful grooming can make the scar less noticeable. In general, the less stress placed on the wound, the less the scar will spread over time. Although it is not always possible to prevent injuries that cause scarring, it is possible to reduce the risk of scarring after an injury.
Whenever there is an incision or cut in the skin, a scar will be left. Most cuts that require stitches, staples, or skin glue will be scarred. Wound dehiscence is a surgical complication in which an incision is reopened, an incision made during surgery. Although wound dehiscence can occur after any surgical procedure, it is more common after abdominal or cardiothoracic interventions.
Wound dehiscence can often occur during abdominal surgeries such as cesarean section (where babies are born through an incision in the abdomen) and laparotomies (which allow doctors to examine the abdominal organs). Wound dehiscence treatment may include medications to relieve pain and treat infections, as well as surgery to remove dead tissue and repair the wound.
When the surgical incision begins to open (a problem called suture dehiscence), you need to watch closely for signs of deterioration. When the short-term effects of surgery, such as bleeding wounds and pain in the incision, are long gone, an invisible complication, surgical scar tissue, may lurk under the skin. While knee, wrist, or ankle surgery is designed to improve movement and function, excessive scar tissue around the joints can backfire.
Vomiting, coughing hard, or lifting heavy objects can stretch the sutures or staples that hold the wound closed while it heals. Pressure directly on the scar can also become uncomfortable and painful.
Remember, however, that scarring is a natural part of the healing process, no matter how good the surgeon is. How you heal depends a lot on your genes, for example, darker skin can lead to deeper and thicker scars.
There are many skincare products and scar creams on the market. Call your doctor if the redness gets worse or extends more than half an inch from the incision. Sometimes the scar is still pink or red because the new blood vessels formed to heal the wound never retracted after the work was done.
