As a few of you know i had a bad accident in February and I have had 2 operations to hol dmy leg and ankle together with what seems to be a ton of surgical steel lol. Anyway, due to th eoperations i have some proper hideous scars on my leg, one runs from my ankle almost to my knee on the outside leg and i have a shorter one on the inside leg from my ankle to just under halfway up my leg ... what i want to know is does anybody know if there is anything i can use that you buy over the counter to make them less noticable, paler (they are angry red right now) softer (there is a lot of hardness around them) ... i do rub them with E45 cream but doesnt seem to be helping.
I know there are many many people wrse off but its sort of affecting my self esteem a lot and when i mentioned it at the hospital they said i should concentrate on getting right instead of the cosmetic things but i look at them and feel a bit disgusted with them so i reckon its better to try and sort something out with them now.
Has anyone any advice on them for me, any would be appreciated!
Han x

Hi Han, as always i've done some research, and it would seem that what you are already doing is the best approach as putting anything else (eg cosmetics) on the scars is likely to hamper the healing process - the human body is a fantastically marvellous thing and does very well at healing itself, unfortunately it takes a lot of time which is why the doctors tell you to concentrate on getting better, even if thier way of telling you is insensitive!
The scars will be much less apparent within a couple of weeks as the current 'angry redness' and 'hardness' is due to 'apoptosis' (the body's automatic removal of uneccessary cells) which is a short phase of the new tissue formation
- see the wikipedia details on wound-healing, very interesting stuff...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_healing

Sorry but I haven't found anything on making them look any better right now for you

How about going for 'reverse psychology' and hang a sign on it that says 'Cor!...look at my scar....what a cracker!'

Wot ever u do dont let them get sunburnt...................scared skin burns quicker and easyier than normal..................total sun block for the scars, and a case of letting your body heal itself, in time the scars will fade.

I have heard that rubbing vitamin E in helps.

i had heard of bio oil but i know that you have to wait ages to use it ... is vitamin e a cream or an oil ... you can tell this comes from the girl who has always used the same moisturiser ... im an e45 girl never really looked at anything else!

my sis used to break open vitamin e capsules filled with an oily fluid, and rub that on her scar. Hope it helps

No worries My sister said it helped her scar so I hope it helps yours.