What color is a scar when it's healing?

When a scar first develops on lighter skin, it's usually pink or red. Over time, the pinkish color fades, and the scar becomes slightly darker or lighter than the color of the skin. In people with dark skin, scars often appear as dark spots. Sometimes scars itch, and they may be painful or tender.

What should a scar look like when healing?

You're in the home stretch: Your wound has filled in and a new surface has formed. This final period can last from 6 months to 2 years. You'll see some changes in your scar. It will go from looking thick, red, and raised to thinner, flatter, and more like your usual skin color.

How do you know if your scar is getting better?

As your skin continues to heal, the scar will flatten and change color. In time, many flat scars are nearly the same color as your skin. A flat scar may also be paler or slightly darker than your surrounding skin. Proper wound care may increase the likelihood that you'll see a flat scar instead of a raised scar.

What does it mean when a scar changes color?

Sometimes during the scarring process, the body's cellular process is changed by a chemical response called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. An excess of melanin moves to the injured area to speed up healing, and as a result, the surface skin becomes discolored, particularly around the edges of the original wound.

Should a healing scar be red?

For about six weeks after surgery the scar becomes red, firm and hard. This is the body's way of making a very strong and solid scar. Over the next four months the scar will soften and lose the redness. This is the normal process of scarring.

Skin Wound Healing Process

How long do new scars stay red?

Conclusions: Scar redness fades on average at 7 months. This is influenced by the wound type and position. The authors advocate the use of the term "rubor perseverans" to describe the physiologic redness of a normal scar as it matures beyond the first month, a process that does not involve inflammation.

Do some scars always stay red?

Most of the time red or reddish-purple scars will fade in color as the wound heals, which typically takes around 12 months. In some cases, however, scars can remain discolored. This occurs most frequently with keloids and hypertrophic scars.

Do scars get darker before healing?

It can take up to 12-18 months after your injury or operation for a scar to heal. A normal scar will become darker initially and after a period of time this will start to fade. Dark scars can remain for years or indefinitely in people with darker skin.

How long does a scar take to fade?

In time, some collagen breaks down at the site of the wound and the blood supply reduces. The scar gradually becomes smoother and softer. Although scars are permanent, they can fade over a period of up to 2 years. It's unlikely they'll fade any more after this time.

How long does a scar take to heal?

After having an injury or surgery, you may be wondering how long it will take for your scar to heal completely. Well, a scar can heal within 12 to 18 weeks in most cases. However, how long your specific scar will take to heal depends on various factors, including size, depth, type of scar, and proper wound care.

Is it better to keep a scar moist or dry?

Wet or moist treatment of wounds has been shown to promote re-epithelialization and result in reduced scar formation, as compared to treatment in a dry environment. The inflammatory reaction is reduced in the wet environment, thereby limiting injury progression.

What helps scars heal faster?

Gently wash the area with mild soap and water to keep out germs and remove debris. To help the injured skin heal, use petroleum jelly to keep the wound moist. Petroleum jelly prevents the wound from drying out and forming a scab; wounds with scabs take longer to heal.

What are the four stages of scar healing?

The four phases of wound healing

As inflammatory cells undergo apoptosis, wound healing progresses to the proliferation phase, which is characterized by the formation of granulation tissue, angiogenesis (blood vessel formation), wound contraction, and the process of epithelialization.

Do scars always turn white?

Surgical scars, when settled or mature, are always white (they contain no pigment producing cells) but occasionally scars can over pigment (i.e. become darker).

How do I know if my wound is healing properly?

Swelling - After the scab formation, the body's immune system starts healing the wound in the form of swelling and tendering. Swelling is the sign that the body's immune system is working properly and repairing your wound. You may notice drainage from the wound to clear the area.

When should I be concerned about a scar?

When should I seek medical advice? If your scar is excessively swollen, red or painful or there is a discharge or odour. If your scar becomes red or itchy. If you are concerned about your scar and its changed appearance.

How long does it take for a scar to turn skin color?

According to the National Institutes of Health, it takes between two and three years for scars to turn pale and the skin to mature.

Why do my scars look worse some days?

Wound infection

The longer it takes for a wound to heal, the worse a scar will look down the road. When a wound gets infected, specialized skin cells known as fibroblasts won't work as efficiently because they are competing with the microorganisms causing the infection.

Do scars ever fully heal?

Mature scars can also flatten out as they go through this aging process, but it's important to note that scars will never go away completely. Even with some scar treatments, the appearance will be improved, but they will never totally disappear because the skin composition is different from the surrounding tissues.

Why are my scars dark and not light?

There are a few reasons why a scar might turn dark. For example, if a scar was exposed to sunlight during the healing process, there's a good chance the scar tissue will become pigmented. Dark scars can also be caused by inflammation, poor healing, or the genetics of your skin and how your skin heals.

Why do some scars stay dark?

After injury or irritation, skin inflammation triggers an explosion of pigment production. All this color lingers in the area long after wounds heal, creating darker sections of skin and drawing unwanted attention to your scars.

Why do scars turn white instead of red?

White scars, or “hypopigmented” scars, are due to a loss of melanocytes that manufacture pigment. This loss is usually permanent, but can sometimes be improved by fractional laser resurfacing, which allows some of the pigment cells to migrate back into the lighter-colored skin areas.

What stops scars from red?

Lasers often target blood vessels in the scar which can remove these blood vessels and prevent scar growth. They also can lighten the red or pink color often seen in scars and reduce pain, itch and hardness. A fractionated laser may be used to put microscopic holes in the scar to soften it and tell it to remodel.

How do you reduce the redness of a scar?

Laser or light therapy (pulses of light) can reduce the redness in a scar by targeting the blood vessels in the excess scar tissue. For some pitted scars, laser surgery (laser resurfacing) is used to try to make the scar flatter.

Why is my scar still red after a month?

Although sufficient scar tissue forms within a few weeks, so that any sutures can be removed safely, the body continues to work hard laying cables of collagen and reconfiguring the scar. After two months the scar may still have a reddish, raised appearance, which can persist for a full year.