How exactly does scarring go away?

[bozo]

For example, if there are kind of flat "plates" of scar tissue in the chest, they will probably go down with time, right?

But when they go down, will they sort of dissolve and leave a hollow where the hard part was? Or does the scar tissue shrink and meld into the normal tissue, and smaller, thus bringing both sides together in a more natural way?

[DrBermant]

For example, if there are kind of flat "plates" of scar tissue in the chest, they will probably go down with time, right?

But when they go down, will they sort of dissolve and leave a hollow where the hard part was? Or does the scar tissue shrink and meld into the normal tissue, and smaller, thus bringing both sides together in a more natural way?

Scars are natures way of healing injured tissues. All wounds heal with a scar.  Scars are part of the normal healing process.  The question is the extent and nature of the scar.  Scars can be soft and barely noticeable.  They can be on the surface or through the plane of deeper dissection.  Scars can also adhere layers together such that tissue movement is abnormal.

Check out this bad adhesion scar movie that shows a large crater defect.

Here is another movie of another patients with a bad adhesion scar from liposuction alone.

Scars can be normal in color, lighter than normal, or darker than normal.

Scars are a function of the problem treated, surgical techniques, skill of your surgeon, swelling and bruising after surgery, Scar Care, After Gynecomastia Surgery Compression, after care, how you heal, and many other factors.  Prevention is the best method of minimizing scars. I prefer techniques that typically result in minimal scars, those that are as soft as possible and move well during animation.

This movie deals with the emotional scars of living with gynecomastia and the very early results after an internal lift mastopexy chest lift.

I take movies of all of my gynecomastia patients, I have just not had the time to put the typical movies up on the website.

The areola chest skin interface is a great place to hide a scar.  Check out the many before after pictures of this Areola / Nipple Gallery here, here, and here.  These results are typical for my sculpture of my patients.

How tissues move is important.  The human body is beautiful in animation.  That is why I show pictures of the chest with arms up, down, and with muscles tight / relaxed in addition to the results from multiple views.  Limited view demonstrations can pick the best angle to hide deformities and problems.  Such analysis of the results as well as how tissues evolve, the possible need for drains, comfort level after surgery, are important factors in picking your doctor.

Hope this helps,

Michael Bermant, MD
Learn More About Gynecomastia Surgery

[bozo]

Thanks for the response Dr. Bermant.  The bad adhesion scar video you posted doesn't look that bad to me.  I don't think I would have looked twice or even thought he had had surgery if I saw him at the beach or something.  Maybe I'm too easily satified.

Anyway, I don't have scarring from the cutting of the skin, but after 50 days, the area on the right side where there was some lipo has just gone kind of hard and has some faint ridges and contours to it.  I'm hoping and waiting for it to go down.  But if it doesn't I'm still pretty satisfied with the results anyway.  Just waiting on the discolouration to fade more.

[DrBermant]

Thanks for the response Dr. Bermant.  The bad adhesion scar video you posted doesn't look that bad to me.  I don't think I would have looked twice or even thought he had had surgery if I saw him at the beach or something.  Maybe I'm too easily satified.

Anyway, I don't have scarring from the cutting of the skin, but after 50 days, the area on the right side where there was some lipo has just gone kind of hard and has some faint ridges and contours to it.  I'm hoping and waiting for it to go down.  But if it doesn't I'm still pretty satisfied with the results anyway.  Just waiting on the discolouration to fade more.

Then check out these Crater Deformity Scars After Bad Gynecomastia Surgery. I have seen even worse scars on other surgeons' disasters.

Tissues tend to evolve over time as part of the normal healing process. There are limitations that realistic surgery tends to offer. My being a perfectionist helps my patients achieve the best possible result I can sculpt.

A patient being happy is the best result in any case.

Hope this helps,

Michael Bermant, MD
Learn More About Gynecomastia and Male Breast Reduction