Keloids are the inherent defect in the body’s wound healing process.
They’re a type of raised scar. They occur where the skin has healed after an injury, and can grow to be much larger than the original injury that caused the scar. Anything that can cause a scar can cause a keloid. This includes being burned, cut, or having severe acne. Keloids can also develop after you get a body piercing or a tattoo, or have surgery. Keloids sometimes show up 3 months or more after your skin is injured. Some continue to grow for years.
Why Does It Develop?
Getting keloid is a genetic tendency and few people are more prone to keloids than others. Certain genes controlling the healing process are defective in these people. Hence, the body initiates the healing process by starting producing collagen, but it doesn’t know where to stop. So it keeps on producing new collagen which becomes excessive and gets arranged in an abnormal fashion.
Who Is Prone To Get A Keloid?
Dark –skinned individuals are generally more susceptible to getting keloids and the severity is high in them. One of the primary reasons is that dark-skinned individuals have more curly hair that gets entrapped into a keloid and stimulates its growth. While the root cause of getting a keloid is not fully known, few factors are identified as trigger factors or aggravating factors such as:
1. Stretch on the wound
2. Delayed healing of the wound, badly cared or infected wounds
3. Hairy part of the skin
4. Oily skin with frequent breakouts
How Are Keloids Treated?
The goal of treating Keloid is to flatten, soften, or shrink it. Keloids can be hard to get rid of. Sometimes they make a comeback even after the treatment. Recent research has shown that effective control of trigger factors and pressure therapy along with newer laser devices gives excellent clearance. Skin City has recently developed a protocol to treat keloids successfully that incorporates a combination of fractional lasers like ultrapulse SCAAR FX, fractional drug delivery and Enerjet JVR collagen remodeling along with traditional pressure therapy.
Are Injections Safe In The Treatment Of Keloids?
The first line of treatment in keloid treatment is pressure and creams. The second effective treatment is injections and lasers. Most doctors inject triamcilone steroid or 5 Flouro Uracil into keloid tissue to flatten the protruded skin mass. 5 Flouro uracil injections are common anti-cancer chemotherapy drug and are used to suppress the activity of collagen-producing fibroblasts.
Steroid injection into keloid is a common practice by many general practitioners. Right dilution of the injection and correct depth of injection into the thickness of keloid will decide its efficacy and safety. A common side effect of steroid injection is tissue atrophy, where the skin literally sinks in and it takes more than a year to recover. Injecting too much or too frequently can cause the steroid getting absorbed into the circulation and develop acne-like lesions on otherwise normal parts of the body. New pus-filled pimples always have a chance to convert into a new keloid.
Though injections into keloid is an effective way to control the growth temporarily, most of the times patients end up with complications. So choosing a right injection ingredient and right technique remain in the hands of a treating physician.
Everyday Life
Keloids are not harmful to your health. But having keloids can be upsetting to you. You may be embarrassed about how they look. This can even hurt your self-esteem. Most people who get treatment for keloids do so because they don’t like the way they look. Luckily, the treatments that are available can improve the way the keloids look, even if they don’t get rid of the scars completely.
If you have a keloid scar that’s causing either physical or emotional upset, our team at The Skin City can help you.