What did the dermatologist actually do to fix it? I have a keloid scar (raised, red, itchy) and want to get it treated. Mine's from keyhole surgery so only about 1cm long but it drives me crazy. Can only imagine how much worse it would be if it was a c/s scar.
And does the solution also help cosmetically - as in, does the redness go?
Hi Lil MG,
Oh yes, you can imagine how I felt. The itching drove me mad & I felt that I could not go around scratching like that for the rest of my life!
The dermatologist was at pains to stress that my scar was hypertrophic, not keloid. I didn't ask more b/c I was interested only in solving the problem! Later, I asked another dermatologist about that. She said that current thinking is that only dark skinned people have true keloid scarring. Hypertrophia & keloids are like 2 points of progression on the same line. Keloid scars get worse & keep getting worse--more raised, more scar tissue, more itching, etc. Hypertrophic scars get worse for a period of time and then stop. She also said that you cannot really predict who will have bad scarring; it is probably genetic & probably has something to do with the amount of collagen in your skin. You can have a bad result on one occasion & a perfect one on another (this is what happened to me). Also, keloids/hypertrophia, if they occur, are more likely to occur on the trunk than anywhere else.
The dermatologist gave me a cream to rub in. This was nearly 12 years ago now, so I don't remember the name of the cream. It was prescription. Then he had me come back a month later. By that time the scar had gone down considerably & the itching was much less. He told me to continue & come back in another month if it wasn't virtually perfect. A month later, it was! Yes, it also helped cosmetically although I'm not sure how much was the cream & how much was just the passage of time. The scar became totally flat & looked like a thin white line.
He told me that if they know you are prone to hypertrophic scarring, they can inject something at or just after the time of surgery to prevent it. In the incision, I think? I really don't remember very much about that.
I was concerned about the scarring after my 2nd c/sec 9 months ago, but because my baby was premature, I let it go. I could tell by my 6 week checkup that the scar was going to heal well. The current scar is a bit bigger which annoys me because the baby was literally less than half the size, and it's still red, but completely flat and thin.
HTH! Definitely press your GP for help with that.
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