Scar removal?

Factual Questions
1

I have some scarring on my face that is the result of a car accident. There aren’t any real big of long scars; they’re mostly deep scrapes. A lot of the smaller, fine, scars didn’t even require stiches. They’ve faded pretty well, and people tell me that they don’t notice them, but the scars still look prominent when I look in the mirror.

A little over a year ago I talked with the plastic surgeon that sewed up my face in the first place. He said it would be possible to remove the scars on my forehead (didn’t mention anything about the side of the face) by grinding off the top layer of skin. The grinding sounds like it would be painful, and the doctor said that there was a chance that the skin might grow back with a different skin tone from the rest of my face. Having a two-toned face seems worse than having scars, so I decided not to do that (yet).

I thought about putting this into GQ, but I decided to stick it here. I’d like to hear from anyone with any knowledge or experience with having scars removed or any of the concerns I mentioned. Are there any other procedures that get rid of scars? How do they work?

One last thing, the scars are about two years old. Is there anything that I could do at this stage to try to make them fade more/go away? When I first got them I didn’t pick at them, and I kept them greased up with vaseliene and vitamin E lotion. Is there anything else I could do at this point?

2

I’ve been thinking about this for some time because I have a very prominent scar from an appendix operation many years ago. Recently there has been an advertisement for a cream (Medema?) that is supposed to make scars go away (disolve?). I happened to see some in the drug store recently.

It is $27.00 for a very small tube that you have to apply several times a day for several weeks/months. Whether it works, or not, I have no idea, but it sure will make the manufacturer wealthy.

If I had much money, I’d give a plastic surgeon a shot at fixing my scar. In the meantime, I’ll ignore it.

Bob

3

Sorry. I’m not trying to equate my belly scar to your facial scars.

Bob

4

“Recently there has been an advertisement for a cream (Medema?)”

I wonder about that stuff too. How would it know which skin (the scar or regular skin) to dissolve?

5

Moderator action:

I reviewed this at poster request; the question really is borderline for placement. Since it hasn’t garnered much anecdotal feedback in IMHO so I’m shifting it over to GQ for factual consideration.

Veb

6

I haven’t had dermabrasion (“face-grinding”) but I’ve known a couple people who have had it done. Yes, there is pain involved but a good doctor will give you something for that. Neither of the two people I know wound up with “two-tone” skin. The two-tone effect is supposedly more likely to happen with dark skin rather than light, and the two people I knew were pale-skinned blondes, in other words, least likely to have this problem. You have to keep out of the sun/use sunscreen until you heal up and then some - 6 months to a year? I don’t recall the exact length of time. That applies no matter how dark your skin is. The area treated will be very delicate, like baby skin, for awhile. It also depends on how well you heal. Some people heal better than others from skin injuries and that has to be evaluated and considered by your doctor and you.

The two folks I knew had good results - their facial scarring was much reduced. Both of them said it wasn’t a lot of fun to go through but it was bearable and they felt better about their appearances. Your mileage may vary, of course, and please remember this is a second hand account.

7

Sorry for being late to respond, I didn’t get a chance to post during the holiday.

urban1

That’s OK, I knew what you meant. One of my cousins had some scars on her body from some surgeries, she got them “re-cut” and sewn back together I guess. I think that’s one type of method of getting rid of scars. This type of procedure wouldn’t work so well for fine line, facial scars.

I’d also like to hear about the medema if anyone knows about it.

Broomstick, thanks for the response. I don’t have dark skin, but I really don’t think the pain would be worth it. I’m kind of hoping someone has some kind of insider knowledge about some kind of pain free scar removal done by lasers or something like that.

8

Scar removal

9

hi,
i am an OR tech, you know i scrub in with the surgeon and all that. well, we do scar revisions occasionally, most of the time on the face. we use a CO2 laser. i don’t get a chance to see the patients down the road to see the results, but we haven’t had anybody come back to get it redone. the doc tells me that the outcome is usually pretty good. i’d suggest talking to your doc about laser treatment rather than derm-abrasion. GOOD LUCK

10

Epinions - 10 reviews of Mederma

11

I did have dermabrasion over two areas of scars on the side of my face after a car accident. Fortunately the scars were on the side of my face and not where I ordinarily look to get my face washed and hair fixed up.

The doc said that the dermabrasion would smooth out the scars and that did happen. “Skin color” is located in the same top layers that dermabrasion removes, these areas will never tan and only two or three of the biggest, bravest and boldest freckles dared to re-appear in those areas.

Dermabrasion is, in a way like a burn, it removes the protective layer of skin above the nerves exposing the nerve endings to every breeze, breath, air moving by the opening and closing of doors, and even turning of your head. It was wicked. But after a few days the skin scabs over and that pain was done and gone.

Was it worth it? Yep, it was. I have been wearing SPF 8-25 ever since then, slap it on right after drying my face every morning and I aim to never again get a tan. My whole face is pale and if I eyebrow pencilled in a few dark little freckles (the fly speck kind) I wouldn’t ever guess what had been done where. The areas done were about 1x2" and 1x4".

It’s important that you have “white” skin to begin with, IMHO, for even ivory, olive, or other versions of light skin will be darker than the areas that have had dermabrasion.

But I am done with it. I don’t even think about it unless I see a question like yours.

Talk to two plastic surgeons and ask what they would do and what they think the results would be. They would have pictures of “befores” and “afters” that they could show you.

Jois

12

Wow! Thanks for the quick, informative responses.

I’ll take all the information into consideration. Right now I don’t think any amount of pain from dermabrasion would be worth it, because of other things I have going on.

I think I’ll do some more research on the Mederma and the laser thing. I haven’t seen the plastic surgeon in a little over a year, and I suppose that taking care of the scarring can always wait in hopes of something better coming along.

Thanks again for all the great responses, I appreciate it.

13

My goodness !

Look at us all coming out of the woodwork!

I’ve had four operations for facial scarring (car accident)
My scars have diminished considerably, however are still quite noticeable. When my financial circumstances are a little better, I’m intending to research laser treatments, but as yet, have not, so my info isn’t worth posting.

I have had a dermal abrasion, though. The problem with this method is that it actually irritates the face, and for at least six months after the surgery, the scarring looks ten times worse. To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend dermal abrasion, unless your scarring was of the lumpy/knotty variety. FTR, I’m a brunette who tans very easily, and had no two-tone problems (I was 12 at the time, so the operation was at my parents decision)

Speak with your plastic surgeon about all options, and ask them to refer you to a laser surgeon, too, so you can check out that approach. (a lot of surgeons only specialise in a narrow field- mine knows nothing about lasers and doesn’t “trust” them :stuck_out_tongue: )

As far as pain goes, the looks you get from some people are way worse than pain from surgery. It is inconvenient in terms of treatment. I had a patch on my face for 4 months, and had to add a gel under the patch three times a day. Always wear sunscreen, as skin gets tougher and heals worse the more it is damaged by the sun. You should be wearing at least SPF 15 + whenever you go outside, to give any operation a better base to heal from. (my 2 cents)

Unfortunately, I have just thrown out all my before/after photos of each operation, so I can’t show you graphically.

[sub] Every time I clean up, I need whatever I threw out within a week or two[/sub]