Types Of Scars, From Keloid to Contracture

Scars come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and types. Not only can the type of scar be affected by the original cause, but it can be affected by the healing process as well.

Knowing which type of scar you have is important if you want to try and improve the appearance of the scar or remove it all together. The main types of scars are:

Contracture

Contracture scars are areas of thicker, tighter skin that your body forms after an injury, often a burn. When a contracture scar occurs over a large surface area, it can lead to a large patch of skin being tightened. This means that you can lose some mobility of the affected body part- the tightened layer of skin means movement will be more painful and restricted.

Keloid

Keloid scars are generally caused by cuts or other accidents, and they are one of the most visually obvious forms of scarring. Keloids are formed when your body attempts to repair a skin injury, but too many scar cells are formed so the scar tissue covers some of the area surrounding the wound. They are often red-purple in cover and they can take a long time to fade away. Even if they do start to blend in with the surrounding skin tissue, thy will leave a layer of raised scar tissue.

Hypertrophic

Hypertrophic scars are very similar to keloid scars, but they do not expand beyond the wound itself, so they are generally smaller and less obvious. They are still raised above the surface of the surrounding skin, but their size means that they usually fade away naturally, leaving them hard to see after a few years.

Atrophic

Atrophic scars are almost the opposites of hypertrophic and keloid scars- instead of forming a raised tissue, the scar is sunken below the rest of the healthy skin. This is because the injury that caused the atrophic scar damaged the tissue below the skin- they can be caused by surgical operations, and skin conditions such as acne and chicken pox. Like keloid scars, they can be quite hard to conceal, but the sunken rather than raised tissue means they are less noticeable.

As well as the type of scaring, the size of scar will also affect how they are treated - a large hypertrophic scar will still be more difficult to conceal than a small keloid. If you do get discomfort from a scar, or you simply don't like having one than there are lots of methods to get rid of scars, but your first action should be to contact your doctor.

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