Nutrition - Studies show that your body needs zinc, vitamin C, protein, iron, adequate calories, vitamins and minerals to heal effectively.Certain illnesses such as diabetes, thyroid disease, high blood pressure and poor circulation can decrease the body's ability to heal.How you heal will depend greatly on your genetics, for example, darker skin can produce darker and thicker scars. Personal factors that affect wound healing Scar remodelling is what changes a thick, red, raised scar to a thin, flat, white scar and over the course of time, your scars will usually fade and become barely noticeable. The unpleasant appearance understandably causes some people concern at this point.įinally, the remodelling stage begins and continues for a period from several weeks to a few years. It makes the scar more obvious and uncomfortable. The scar becomes thicker, red and contracts. Abnormal scars can develop if this stage goes ‘faulty’. After this time, destruction of collagen matches its production and so its growth levels off. The collagen continues to be produced for two to four weeks, pulling the edges of the wound together, and new capillaries (tiny blood vessels) are formed to aid the healing process. Collagen is important because it increases the strength of the wound. One of the most important duties of the fibroblasts is to produce collagen. Fibroblasts (cells that are capable of forming skin and other tissue) gather at the site of injury. (To proliferate means to grow by rapid production). The wound at this point will look red and swollen and pink.Īfter this, the proliferative stage takes place and continues for about three to four weeks. During this time, the bleeding stops and white blood cells come to the site and fight any infection. The inflammatory stage begins immediately and lasts a few days. The three phases to healing are the inflammatory stage, the proliferative stage and the remodelling stage. However, there are three distinct stages to healing and your scar will have a different appearance during each stage. This will of course depend on the operation site and a number of personal factors come into play. In younger patients, or where the skin is more taught, it will take eighteen months to two years before the scar is mature. In older patients, or where the skin is more lax, scars settle more rapidly. Individual factors also influence how quickly your body is able to recover from a wound.” “Usually the scars will heal rather quickly - within the course of a few weeks to one or two months - but you may not see final results for up to a year. “We usually advise people that it takes about a year for them to judge the final results from any cosmetic surgery treatment”, says Mr Henley. Be mindful though, however good the surgeon, scars are a natural part of the healing process. Plastic surgeons take great care with ‘sewing up’ the skin and are also good at hiding scars in places that you may not see. Mr Henley says, “There is no such thing as no scar – it cannot be completely eliminated.” However, the goal is to make any scar as small and discreet as possible. Anytime there is an incision or cut in the skin, there is going to be a scar.
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