Keloid scars!
 

what to do?
i have few on my upper arm and many on my thighs i was reading a post for Harley at V2 and as i continued reading i thought i will never get rid of them:sad:

There isnt alot that you can do really, you can help smooth them out i guess by useing vit E creams bio oil but there is no real way to get rid of keloid scars. Consult your GP and ask them if there is anything that they can suggest there might be some extreme things that can be done to help get rid of or reduce them more but i would think that it would come at cost as well.

take care

they do take a while to heal, and ususually never completely go away. you can use scar creams, which will smooth out the skin & hopefully make it less noticeable.

read a bit here

I've been given Cica care sheets from my GP before which are designed to flatten and fade keloid scars. I don't know if they do work as they are still sitting in my drawer, but it's definitely worth a try x

Yeah silicone sheets do the same thing they help reduce scars

i got given a gel called kelo-cote for scars and it hs flattened them ou for me. it is used by plastic surgons in hospitals in the uk

But they won't go away completely right?

Keloid scars are pretty much permenant but like it has been said you can reduce and fade them with creams etc.

permenant :shocked:

Aaron, by permanent, do you mean they will never be the same color/texture as uninjured skin? or will they never fully flatten out? I have a bunch on my chest that can be felt through my shirt and i'd like to get them to flatten so that they cant be felt. it always makes me freak when someone pats me on the gut, i dont want people finding out about them.

-brian

I have some bad keloid scars on my arm that are about 4/5 years old and they have gone completely white and do seem to have flattened out a bit. They do seem to soften with time.

My keloid scars have flattened and faded with time and care. Scars are permanent though.

Until you've tried various creams, patches, etc, try not to worry about how they're going to appear in the future. You may be surprised by how much your scars reduce, and different people scar differently, and different scar reduction methods work differently.
Don't be disheartened, but try to reduce your scars as much as possible. Also, your scars are likely to seem much more visible to you than they are to anyone else, as you know they're there.
Make it a mission to get rid of them as much as possible, put a positive spin on it, and see where it takes you.
x

Sorry to but in, but as it's related Does plastic surgery work to get rid of keloid scars?

you can have scars cut out and stitched up in surgery, but I've only heard that done with acne scars

maybe do some research


the scars on my arm have gone completely white. I have a nasty habit of picking at fresh cuts, but they still heal white. Use bio oil to smooth them or something similar

Many people get confused with hypertrophic scars and keloids, and I suspect that many of the posters of this thread have hypertrophic scars. Keloids are incurable, and they just keep on expanding and encroaching on nearby healthy skin. The fact that your scars have become white and flat over the years mean, by definition, that they are hypertrophic. It is very important to make this distinction, as HS are responsive to treatments but keloids are not.

Now, HS can be excised and re-sutured by a plastic surgeon to form a thinner scar, but the length of the scar cannot be shortened. Kenalog injections have also been proven effective in flattening and reducing the redness in HS. And an important factor in HS is skin tension. If your wound is located in a high tension area on your body, then it would heal badly and there would be scar widening.

What's a comprehensive way to deal with HS, assuming that you are a heavy HS scar former?

Have the scar excised by a PS, making sure he performs advanced surgical techniques like Z-plasty / W-plasty to minimize tension. You can consider having the PS inject corticosteroids at the time of surgery into the wound edges as a precaution against HS, or you can have them injected 2 weeks post-op so the Kenalog wouldn't interfere with the wound healing process. After your external sutures are out, apply paper tapes, bridging your scar, to hold the incision together. Do this for at least 6-8 weeks and this may prevent scar widening and HS from forming. You can also consider having 585nm pulsed dye laser starting on the day of suture removal, for 3-4 treatments in total, 6-8 weeks apart. Pulsed dye laser has been proven effective on HS.

When your paper tapes are off, use scar products such as Mederma and Cica care on the scar for as long as possible. If you see HS starting to recur, keep up with the Kenalog injections. Note that Kenalog injections may have adverse side effects on some people, so make sure the PS does not overdose you with it. Finally, keep the new scar away from the sun, as UV light tends to cause collagen to hyperpigment permanently.

Of course this treatment method is certainly not cheap. But scars are very difficult to deal with and there are no cures on the market as of yet.

This thread is quite old and because of that I'm going to lock it. Please only reply to currently active threads on the boards.

Aidey, First Aid Moderator