Burn Marks - Know How Surgery Can Help!

Reconstructive surgery is unable to exclude a patient s burn scars entirely, but it will help improve essential functions and make scars less noticeable. Burn injuries may render the patient with contracture; surgery can assist a patient to regain range of motion. Facial scarring that leads to problems with the lips, eyelids, hair loss or nose can also be sustained with reconstructive burn surgery. Scars that are abnormal, wide, discolored, or thick might also be improved by a variety of non-operative and operative methods.

Maximum burn scars can be camouflaged or eliminated using procedures such as skin grafting, scar revision, tissue expansion, and non-surgical Fraxel laser technology depending upon the intensity of the burn. In critical cases where the entire face is disfigured, the substantial scars known as keloids are replaced and removed with chunks of your normal tissue through microsurgery. Patience is a crucial ingredient that is required to recover through these methods.

If the wounds are severe, debriding which is the removal of dead tissues is done before reconstructive surgery. Once dead tissues are removed, there are several types of wound treatments your plastic surgeon may suggest which includes skin grafting, free flap procedure, microsurgery or tissue expansion.

Surgery for burns aims to develop both the aesthetic appearance of burn scars as well as the healing method. This involves changing scar tissue, with both non-operative and operative treatment. The relationship between the burn patient and the reconstructive burn surgeon often lasts many years. It may take several months to recover and settle down post the plastic surgery. Especially in young patients who are still in their growing phase, new scar contractures can arise long after these fractures.