[Question] Scars

[Silent Bob]

My 20 month old acquired a half-inch split to his forehead last night (over his right eyebrow), resulting in 3 stitches. My wife has a very personal history with facial scarring and felt like she didn't insist enough on calling the plastic surgeon from the hospital a town over to do a better job on the cut than the ER doc. Our primary physician looked at it today and said the reduction in swelling has probably contorted the cut a bit, which might mean an uglier scar than if it were stitched straighter. We're waiting to hear from the plastic surgeon if it isn't too late.

I am not too worried but my wife is feeling extra guilty about the ramifications of his eventual scar. Parents, what are your experiences with forehead or facial scars? Non-parents, do you have a visible scar, or did you used to and it faded? I'd love to hear your stories.

He's a boy? Chicks dig scars!

 

[Enresshou]

I wouldn't worry too much about it; like people have said, scars tend to heal and fade over time. When I was about four I caught my forehead on the metal corner of a car door and had an inch-long scar; now it's almost completely invisible.

 

[Silent Bob]

It's actually pretty amazing how little scarring there is in infants.

They're growing so rapidly and heal so quickly that scars don't really have a chance to form.

 

[drifter]

One thing to maybe keep in mind: don't be stingy with the sunscreen. I've got a big dark scar that's never gone away (not on my face, thankfully) which I attribute to too much time in the sun while healing.

 

[Emrys]

He should be fine as long as it's not shaped like a lightning bolt.

 

[AshburnerX]

He should be fine as long as it's not shaped like a lightning bolt.

Or the letters "Tenac" or "ious D".

 

[Yoshimickster]

Both me and my brother have scars, and both of us have gotten used to them(my brother's scar was also over his eye-brow coincidentally). Mine has practically faded away, and my brother's is pretty much non-existent. Just something you get used to.

 

[Bowielee]

I have more scars than I can count from being a kid. We lived in an extremely rural area, so I spent most of my days out of the sight of any responible grown up and trapsing through the woods and old mining lots and climing hills (I feel so bad for kids not being able to do that). As a result, I've puncured my foot all the way through with a rusty nail, tore a gash in my arm on some glass, picked up multiple snakes with my bare hands, and fallen out of countless trees. The only visible scar I have is from the one Chicken Pox that I scratched on my forehead.

 

[doomdragon6]

When I was like 2 I pulled a tablecloth off of a table that happened to have hot chocolate on it, which resulted in terrible burns on my face and shoulders. There's nothing on my face at all that would ever indicate anything had happened (as a matter of fact, I didn't even know about it for years), and I have shoulder scars, but they're the exact same color as my skin now and I've had them literally since I can remember, so they've never stood out to me.

I have a very mild scar on my lip that you can see if you look hard enough. Apparently ran headfirst into a table as a baby.

Currently, I absolutely HATE a scar I have, on my shoulder, from a completely unnecessary mole removal. The mole was tiny and had nothing wrong with it, but was removed "just in case". The scar is gigantic, red, and sticks out even after months of scar cream on it. It's been almost a year since I got it. I hate it so much that I am legitimately considering going to somebody to see if they can do something about it. It pisses me off so much.

 

[Squidleybits]

Like my husband already mentioned my daughter's scar is almost gone. I took her to the ER and they refused us so she got stitched up by a random walk in clinic doctor. She likes to show it to people and there isn't a whole lot to show.

Plastic surgeons don't always do that much better anyways. I had two surgeries on my arm in the last year. The scar on the palm of my hand looks fantastic after two months and I am fairly confident it will almost vanish over time. I'm not self conscious about that one at all. My elbow incision is a 6/7 inch disaster up the back of my arm and I have been buying longer t shirts to try and cover it up. It looks brutal. Both were done by plastic surgeons.

 

[Azurephoenix]

The only scars I have that haven't faded to near unnoticeable are large ones from motocross accidents (like when I cut my back open from near my spine all the way around my obliques). Hell, even those big scars have faded significantly with time.

I have nearly no scars even noticeable from when I was younger.