How does scar tissure ‘remember’ to stay as scar tissue . . or to put it another way. . .
All your skin is replaced over time so when the scar tissue is replaced how does it know to be scar tissue.
I hope I’m making myself clear.
Thanks,
It’s more the point that it doesn’t “know” to become like the tissue it’s replacing, at least in appearance. So once it has sealed the wound, it doesn’t do anything more to look like the rest of the tissue.
If the wound is small enough, the non-damaged skin around it will “know” how to grow replacement tissue that looks like the original. It will slowly take the place of the little scar tissue there until it falls off. This’ll usually happen if the wound is a slice or a puncture, where tissue isn’t necessarily destroyed, just separated.
But bigger wounds are too much for this process, and a little scar evidense will always be there. For example, I once sliced a 3/16" patch of flesh off the pad of my left index finger.
It’s area was about 1/2" x 1/4" oval, and got down below the dermis, cutting an artery. After healing, I had a similar-sized, non-descript skin patch there, which was grown from cells imported to the area, instead of existing tissue bordering the area. It grew back with no fingerprint (which is generated at the dermis layer that I had removed), and even 6 years later still feels numb because nerves didn’t grow back the same as before.
Since then, though, some of the normal tissue has made inroads into the area. The scar is now down to 1/8" X 1/4", and I have replacement fingerprints in the area surrounding that. The nerves still aren’t right; I feel numbness when I should feel light pressure, and pain when I should feel heavy pressure.
This is just one helluva WAG but could it possibly be because the scar tissue is completely dead all the way through the layers of skin? I mean does the dead skin (scar tissue) reach below the layers of the skin and therefore cannot go away? Most of my scars have no feeling to them whatsoever. Especially the ones on my knee from surgery. Although that could very well just be from the surgery. But I’ve digressed. Anyways like I said could it just be because it’s all dead and reaches below all the layers of skin and therefore it can’t be replaced every so often like normal skin? Damn I’ve made this so confusing sounding…
Here is a page that goes into great detail about scar formation:
http://www.plasticsurgery.co.za/scars.html
Hope it helps.
Here is another reference:
http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/http/depts/path/Teaching/foundat/repair/healing.html