Your Scar What's Under There?

By Heather Allen, MS, PT

Whether you got it when you crashed your bike at age seven or when you had major surgery at 50, everyone has scars. They can be short or long, narrow or wide, but no matter what their shape or size, scars can have a greater impact on us than we might expect. Maybe your scar healed well without second thought or perhaps years have passed and it still causes you pain. The truth is there is way more to a scar than what meets the eye.

Scars are more than just a feature on the skin. For the body to be able to piece itself back together again after an injury or surgery it must create scar tissue. Scar tissue is a specialized connective tissue that forms as a temporary means of closing the wound. It differs from normal tissue in that it's created in a very haphazard manner while our normal tissue is highly arranged and organized. As a wound heals the body releases specific chemicals that remodel the scar tissue, making it fall into alignment with the unaffected tissue around it. This not only happens at the level of your skin but also deeply, to the level where the surgical cuts were made or the injury occurred. Sometimes this healing process isn't perfect and that is where those painful and sometimes unsightly scars come in.

Some scars don't get remodeled adequately, leaving behind some of that haphazard and disorganized scar tissue. That scar tissue not only remains at the surface affecting the scars appearance, but it can also remain deep within the wound and adhere to underlying muscles, bones, nerves, joints and fascia. These adhesions then cause pain at or near the site of the scar, pulling or tugging sensations around the scar, and/or dimpling or puckering of the scar and surrounding tissue. The good news, just because that scar didn't heal quite right doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.

Physical therapists are among the many health care practitioners that can treat your scar. An appropriately trained and highly experienced manual therapist is able to use specific techniques that can address the remaining scar tissue both at the surface of your wound and its deeper projections. By receiving skilled treatment for your scar you can get improved mobility around the site of injury, improved scar appearance, and relief from pain.