I had a mastectomy last March and my scar is very thick, red and slightly puckered in places. It is also very itchy at times and quite tender to the touch.
I mentioned my itching to my GP and she looked at the scar and said it was called a keloid scar (when too much tissue is made). I also have one on a cut I had on my arm ( a few years ago).
My GP gave me some hydrocortisone cream to stem the itching, but it doesn’t really help. Aqueous cream makes it more comfy. Vitamin E oil did nothing. I will have a word with my consultant/surgeon when I next see him. I’m having another mastectomy in April and, apparently, I stand a good chance that I’ll get a keloid scar there too.
Has anyone else had this? I thought my scar was normal but apparently not!
Some people are prone to them others aren’t. Quite a lot of black people seem to get them, but a white friend of mine also had one when she had her appendix out. it does make a difference to the cosmetic results of surgery.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that radiotherapy can help with keloid scars but this has risks of its own and I am not sure if hospitals offer it as a way of reducing them.
I got a serum called Kelocote on prescription after my bilateral mastectomy in August last year. It’s better than Bio-oil that a lot of people on here seem to use… I had bone surgery in October too and I have been using it on the long scar on my leg - it’s still red but hardly raised at all.
Ask your doctor about it and give it a go? It takes a couple of weeks of using it daily to notice the results…
My son has a keloid scar on his arm, from when he put it through a plate glass window when he was 7. It went right down to the fatty tissue and he needed 14 stitches. I told him there were ways he could perhaps make it fade if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to know! He looks upon it as some kind of a war wound, something to show his mates!
Hi Jacki - sorry to hear about your scar. But mine is the same. I had a mastectomy in March 2007 and expected this hypertrophic/keloid to happen as it happened when I had surgery on my face, which was treated (successfully) with steroid injections.
On my mastectomy scar I first used Cica Care silicon tape daily for four months which made a slight difference. I also tried Dermatix, a silicon gel which didn’t make any difference. I then moved on to steroid injections. These are done every six weeks or so, I’ve just had the third lot done today. This is finally making a big difference to the scar, it’s thinning out and is fading (very slowly). My breast surgeon does the injections and uses a numbing cream first so it’s not too painful.
For your further surgery you may want to consider using the silicon tape as a PREVENTATIVE measure. I recently had an oophorectomy and once the cuts were healed (two weeks) I used a silicon tape to try and prevent the keloids. I used a different brand called Mepiform which sticks better than the Cica Care tape. The scars aren’t brilliant yet (only 12 weeks ago), but better I think than if I hadn’t used anything.
Hope this helps. We have so much to put up with with this disease. Ask your surgeon about the steroid injections.
Sarah – I’ve ‘studied’ up on keloid scars on the web, and your treatment seems the same as I have read about. My consultant hasn’t seen my scar since my post op check, and since I though it was normal, I haven’t said anything. I think I will have a chat with my bc nurse and possibly make an appt with my consultant before my op.
I’m not worried about how I look - although, LynB1, I am refraining from showing my mates (unless they’re interested), but like the idea of war wounds!