I have been to six doctors - some of them are famous dermatologists. The only place I got misguided was the first doctor when I didn’t know that it was a keloid. Because, the size of the scar was growing, I thought it would be something cancerous. The doctor told me there is nothing to worry but he also told me not to take any treatments and it would fade with time. I believed him and waited for sometime – almost an year and realized that I should been to some other good doctor and started with the treatments immediately. The below listed as the few treatments that are workable.
Surgery
I went to few others doctors and they suggested immediate plastic surgery. But believe me, after having done a lot of research and interacting with people who have got this surgery done, I will only suggest that never take a knife near your keloid. It will only come back bigger and uglier in less than 3 months. There are some places or some exceptions where in if the surgery is followed by laser and radiation treatment, the chances of reoccurrence are low. But from my understanding, it may help very few people and only those for whom the skin is supportive.
Steroid Injections
Allopathic doctors also suggested steroid injections and silicon sheet. But what about the other treatments like Laser, Cyrotheraphy that we find on the web. Most doctors believe that they may not work. In Allopathic medicine, one of the safest treatments in the steroid injection. Doctors have told me that for a keliod of the size of my son, it would take atleast 6 injections, once every month to see significant change. I have been wondering if this will cause any side effect. I have read on the internet that sometimes the injections causes hyper pigmentation – which means if the keloid is blood red color, it may become dark after injections. In the US, every injection is followed by laser treatment to avoid this discoloration.
My son's treatment
My major concern was, will the injections work for my son? I have looked on the net and there are cases reported when there is no response to injections and also for some people the keloid grows bigger in size. The doctors have prescribed 6 injections each with a gap of one month. The response completely depends on the skin type. For some people, there is significant difference just after the first injection itself and after a few more the keloid almost become flat. For some people though they become flat, but immediately reoccur and for some the keloids become flat and do not reappear for a long time. I am not sure in which category my son will fall. Remember chest keloids are the hardest of the keloids to treat. All I want it, the injections shouldn’t do more harm. I am going to be updating this space after every treatment.
To update on my son’s progress, he has taken two shots of injections and the doctor feels that the skin underneath the keloid is becoming soft. The good news is, it has not affected the keloid in any other way, meaning making it big or uglier. And I did not notice any hyper pigmentation so far. There we actually 4 keloids on his chest, 2 small and 2 big. The smaller ones are almost thinning out and fading. The bigger ones look a bit smaller, but the doctor feels that there is still more time and eventually after few more injections we will see a flatter keloid. The doctor has also prescribed two creams that he should apply at night. He initially suggested the use of silicon sheets but that my son is already taking injections, he said the creams would be enough. I am just praying for the best to happen.
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