The skin is the largest organ of the body. It is your greatest protection against pathogens that can make you ill. If you’ve ever had an open skin injury, you probably noticed a scar after healing. Scars are part of the body’s healing process. Their visibility depends on several different factors including: nature of the injury, healing time, age, and race.
To many people scars can be embarrassing, painful and an unsightly condition. The healing process begins when blood starts clotting in the wound. The body then begins depositing a fibrous tissue called collagen to repair the broken skin. It’s much like our original skin, but laid out in a different pattern. Additionally, since this is new tissue, it takes on a different appearance than the original skin. The longer the healing process takes, the more collagen that is deposited and the more pronounced the scar becomes.
Scarring is defined as a mark on the skin, where a wound has not healed completely and has allowed for scar tissue to develop. As a…