Over The Counter Scar Treatment

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Even though scars are nature’s badge of honor of a healing job well done, they’re not necessarily something you want to share with the rest of the world. A scar on your face or hands can cause you embarrassment, and rightly or wrongly, people do notice them. There are many options for treating them, some of these including surgical intervention. Medical attention might come in the form of plastic surgery to remove the scar, collagen fillers, grafts or dermabrasion, laser resurfacing or steroid injections to reduce the appearance of scar tissue.

Before you head for the doctor’s office however, you might want to give a more minor scar a chance at healing from products over-the-counter. The first things you might want to try are pretty mainstream, and have shown different degrees of effectiveness. If your scar is extremely small and relatively new, it might benefit simply from hydration. Consider Vitamin E oil, which is safe and affordable, and may help break down the collagen fibers from which scars are formed. Another topical hydrating lotion is cocoa butter, available ...
... in almost any grocery store or pharmacy. It is cheap and penetrates deeply into the dermis; it can be mildly effective in the treatment of stretch marks. The problem with these solutions is that they tend to rub off, and lose effectiveness over the course of use.

Another popular over the counter commercial scar treatment is silicone. Silicone patches and gels have been shown to reduce or remove acne scars, burn scars, pock marks and stretch marks. Scarout.com carries a line of silicone sheets, patches and gels called InvisiScar™. Silicone has a fairly high success rate because of the effective nature of silicone, which flattens and changes the bulging nature of scar tissues. These are considered among the best ways to remove scars at home, being of medium cost and ease of use. It’s thought that silicone also helps skin with moisture retention, which is necessary for clean scar healing. It creates a waterproof, tough barrier between the scar and the world that can help the scar help cleaner and faster.

Silicone gel treatments can also be extremely helpful in reduction of itching, which can lead to self-injury through scratching. Besides reducing the healing skin’s exposure to potential outside irritants, over the counter silicone gel treatments create a tough barrier between the skin and the world, making airborne irritants a non-issue. Healing tissue means healing nerve endings, which can send messages to the brain that there’s a serious itch. Preventing scratching of healing scar tissue will greatly limit the appearance of scarring once the healing is complete.

Silicone gels can also prove to be more effective than other options because of their great adhesive quality. The gel will stay stuck to the scar, even when a patch or adhesive bandage may come off during normal activity or sleeping. The greater time the gel has to work on the skin, the greater the benefits, including hydration and repair.