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A scar is an area of fibrous tissue (mostly collagen) that replaces normal skin in reaction to an injury. Scars that markedly overproduce collagen becomes raised and are called "hypertrophic." Keloids are much more serious and progress almost uncontrollably into pendulous and shiny elevated growths.
Most "normal" scars are not perfectly flat or none are invisible. Some are slightly raised, some slightly sunken, and some, like stretch marks, are thinned and discolored. No scar can every be removed since even the best treatments still replace one scar with another. Laser surgery can sometimes remove redness from a scar but is less effective at flattening and less effective yet in eliminating depressions.
Less invasive treatments have been suggested and some may or may not actually help. Silicone sheeting placed over a true hypertrophic or keloid scar can help to flatten it. Steroid injections may help, although they can also cause thinning and paradoxical lumpiness.
Other treatments incorporate full strength dermabrasion, filler injections, low-dose radiation, and needling to stimulate collagen production. Obviously, there is no one perfect solution.
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So what about simpler and less invasive treatments you read about in magazines? What about topical creams and ointments?
Don't get your hopes up.
Any good moisturizer will make some scars look better by plumping up the tissue slightly.
Vitamin E, frequently claimed to have miraculous healing effects, has not only proven ineffective in controlled research studies but in some cases counterproductive.
What about the expensive products claiming to stimulate skin remodeling using fancy sounding compounds like copper peptides and DNA regeneration compounds and nearly every vitamin and antioxidant you ever heard of?
Most will thin your wallet far more than any scar. Even silicone sheeting products only help to reduce formation of honest to goodness hypertrophic and keloid scars. Garden-variety scarring, which make up the vast majority of healed and healing wounds, and especially those scars that are already done forming do not respond in the slightest.
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