Hi everybody.
I'm Dr. David Reath, and I'm here to talk
about this week's Truth O Meter Tuesday question.
This week we're talking about scar management,
and trying to get the best-looking scar after
you have surgery, because it's something that's
on the mind of all our patients.
And our question was this: that other than
time, the thing that is going to make the
most improvement in terms of scars is external
compression, or external pressure.
And the answer to that is true.
All scars get better with time.
Look at the scar that you had, say, a week
or two ago, versus the one that's been there
several years, and you can see a drastic difference.
But plastic surgereons for decades have used
external compression to help with scars.
This has been the basis of treatment of burn
scars, people with burns and have a lot of
skin grafts, have more problems with scarring
than any other patients we'll see.
They've always been treated with external
compression garments, which put pressure on
the scar and physically help to mold and change
the scars.
We utilize that same phenomenon in treating
our elective surgery scars.
This is a small sillicone strip, we use it
to cover the incision for breast augmentation.
And by just adhering to the skin, and putting
pressure on the skin, it makes the scars flatten,
and fade and improve much more rapidly than
they might otherwise.
So external compression is a simple thing
to do.
It's easy and it works.
There have been a lot of other things that
have been tried out, that are marketed, that
you can by, which you put on scars.
I've never seen a study that convinces me
that they are truly beneficial or are more
beneficial than external compression.
That's the best thing to do and that's why
we use it on all our patients.
It's hard to know if you have a scar that
is much older, whether external compression
will help.
But certainly during the active healing phase,
for those first six months to a year, we think
it's very beneficial.
So let's find out who this week's winner is.
Sheila Anderson.
Sheila, congratulations, you're this week's
winner.
We have a $100 gift card for you.
Do come into the office and pick that up.
For everybody else out there, we'll have another
question for you next week.
