Scars
 

Has anyone used Mederma or any other scar-reducing medicines? I've started using it on a big scar I have--red, raised, bumpy and buckled. I honestly don't care about the appearance of it as much as the fact that it itches all the goddamn time and makes me want to tear my skin off.

I found one testimonial for Mederma that casually mentioned a reduction in itching/sensitivity along with visual appearance, but nothing else for it or any other product. At $15 a tube, and directions to use it for 3 months before a difference will be seen, can anyone here confirm or deny its effectiveness?

I was given a tube of some kind of scar reducing gel ointment stuff when I had something on my face removed, it didn't do jack squat. Don't know what kind it was but my personal opinion is not to waste my $ on that kind of stuff.
The surgery was done at the end of the summer of '05, the scar hasn't changed much in the past year. It's about an inch long now and the skin is the same color as the rest of my face.

my scars are all emotional.....they don't make creams for them.

Oh, sure they do...but they're just temporary.

Aloe vera gel is pretty friggin miraculous when it comes to skin and all skin related problems. get the 100% prure stuff from "lily of the valley" at your local health food groovy type store. They make a gel which is thicker than the gelly.

Also keep the scar out of sunlight until it is healed.

A large glass of gin, taken orally, will reduce the itching, along with many other, sensations. ;)

As opposed to...

... a gin enema of course. Which is rubbish for scars, but great for hiccups.

reminds me of the joke "...for all the good it did me I might as well have stuck it up my ass."

You're playing my song!

Mederma worked okay for me. I'm not sure if it was time or using Mederma that made them fade a bit, but they no longer itch at all. My scars aren't keloid so they aren't that bad (apart from the size) in the first place.

The docs told me cocoa butter can help. Scars are pretty permanent although some fade in time.

I'm disappointed. I thought this was going to be a "compare your scars" thread.

I'd probably win.

To the OP: Emu oil is good for anything skin-related. I highly recommend Desert Palms emu oil in the US, which you can find online. If the idea of bird fat grosses you out, try massaging it with jojoba oil--either of those would probably make the itching go away, in my layman's opinion.

A tattoo is technically a scar isn't it? So yeah...you win.

Setting aside tattoos, I'm hard to beat, and my dad is near impossible to beat.

Try this snail cream and look at that S car go!

Maybe, but I bet I win the age category: got my first set of stitches at the age of 3.

It worked very well for me, but the scar was very new.

I can beat three for age category. Can probably top any but maybe rkzenrage in all the other categories too.

Bahh! Not counting when I was born and the barbarian savages cut the end of my "special purpose" off, I split my head open at 18 months running into corner bead and by three I had to have the tip of my finger sewn back on.

45 and a half years later the slightest tap on my forehead scar really fucking hurts.
:sniff:

Harry, is that you?

cf is it a c-section scar?

You could try pawpaw ointment. It works really well for some things. I use it when I get tattoos and they heal up usually within a couple of days...well, maybe three.

Also, my friends father used it on his sunspots and they went away.

You could also try pure vitamin E oil. That's what i use for sunburn and scars usually.

Yep.

So far, I can definitely tell the Mederma's doing something, because the general sensation of the scar has changed dramatically. Whether it's actually improving things remains to be seen.

I think Cloud have have been referring to this:

that's right--

At first I thought this was going to be a "show me yours and I'll show you mine" thread.
Damn.

You first :)

A plastic surgeon highly recommended Mederma for a scar on my son's nose (scraped it badly) and it seemed to work. A lot of people swear by it.

It's made from onions so it should work near your liver.

Huh?

I dunno. It is made of onions, but the liver thing baffled me too.

Liver and onions. Good mix.

Update: I finally finished the tube of Mederma, which is supposed to take 6 months but I wasn't persistent enough to apply it 3-4 times a day like the instructions said, so I took much longer. Ultimately there was some moderate improvement in both appearance and sensitivity, but I was not amazed by any means. I would be willing to continue to use it if I thought I'd eventually get great results over time... but then my doctor mentioned this morning that when I have another c-section in 2.5 weeks, the old scar will be completely removed. (Eww.)

So on the one hand it's nice that it won't build up over multiple procedures, but on the other hand it seems all my efforts to reduce the scar(s) was (will be) completely wasted until I'm done having kids. But he did mention that mine was far worse than most, and since I don't normally develop keloid scars then perhaps stitches instead of staples this time will work out better.

Just have them put in a zipper

Velcro is much easier.

Disolvable stitches give the best results I reckon.

What? You haven't tried the product from the makers of Head-On? Golly. Why? No tv?