How to Minimize Scarring After a Dog Bite
Dog bite attacks can cause serious injuries. These injuries can cause many serious risks including a loss of function in the affected area and potentially deadly infections. If you are lucky enough to avoid these effects, though, you might still suffer a long-term complication of dog-bite injuries: scarring.
Scars from a dog bite can seriously impact your life, including affecting your confidence, employment prospects, and personal relationships. Some scars can even disrupt a child’s development by limiting the function of the affected areas. Fortunately, there are some things that you can do to reduce the risk of scarring after a dog bite attack.
What Causes Scarring
Scarring is caused by a disruption of the normal healing process. Some people have a genetic predisposition towards internal disruptions in which the body doesn’t heal itself properly. These people are more likely to develop hypertrophic, keloid, or indented scars. However, whether you are disposed toward scarring or not, how you manage your healing process will impact the development of scars.
Ideally, the body should transition easily through four stages of healing:
- Hemostasis: This word means “stabilizing the blood,” and it refers to the body’s attempts to close a wound and prevent blood loss using platelets, special blood cells that cling together. The proliferation of platelets in the area is what forms scab tissue.
- Inflammation: This is when the body tries to stop infection and start healing. The body sends white blood cells to the area to fight bacteria that have entered through the wound. As the body ramps up its response to invasion, you may see redness, swelling, and discomfort. The wound may feel warmer than other tissue. Disruption and extension of the inflammation process is commonly cited as the primary cause of scarring.
- Proliferation: The body begins rebuilding the damaged area. Skin cells will produce new skin cells to take over from those that were lost. As new skin develops, you’ll notice that the scab is shrinking, surrounded by brand new skin.
- Maturation: This is when the scab falls off, leaving behind new skin. The scab can fall off all at once, or it can slowly shrink. At the time of maturation, it will normally be obvious if you are likely to experience scarring. However, scars don’t really set for several months.
If you want to reduce scarring, it’s important to take steps to help the body flow through its four-stage healing process. Especially target the inflammation stage, trying to prevent the time that the body spends in this stage.
Techniques to Minimize Scarring
When you experience a dog bite attack, there are several things you can do to avoid the development of scars or even reverse scar formation once it starts.
Get Treatment Immediately
One of the best ways to avoid scarring is to get professional care for your dog bite wound. These wounds are more likely to scar because they:
- Have extensive bacteria
- Include crushing skin injury as well as cuts and tears
A doctor can help you address these scarring risks. First, they can make sure the wound is thoroughly cleaned. Wound infection extends the inflammation period, which increases the scarring risk. They can also properly address damage to the full wound area, including both the skin crush as well as the cutting and tearing. In addition, they can dress a wound in a way that avoids putting it under tension, which can increase the risk of scarring.
Keep the Wound Clean and Protected
The presence of bacteria in a wound will lead to prolonged inflammation and, therefore, increased risk of scarring. Most bacteria enter the wound at the time of a dog bite, but bacteria can invade the wound at any point until it is fully healed.
Keep the wound clean and protected to reduce the introduction of bacteria to the wound. Clean the wound with water and mild soap, then dry thoroughly. Apply an antibacterial ointment. Avoid using hydrogen peroxide, which can prevent infection, but also damages skin.
Continue covering the wound and using antibacterial cream at least as long as it produces blood. Keep wounds covered longer if they are in vulnerable areas or your work or lifestyle risks damaging the healing tissue.
Avoid Scratching and Picking at Scabs
Another form of damage to the healing wound is if you scratch or pick at the scabs. This extends the healing period, allows for the introduction of additional bacteria, and forces the body to create new scab tissue.
For children, keeping the wound covered might be necessary to prevent them from picking at scabs.
Pressure Therapy
Once a wound reaches the maturation stage, your doctor will be able to assess the likely level of scarring it will develop. At that point, your doctor might recommend strategies that can encourage continued healing and minimize scarring.
One of these treatments is pressure therapy. In pressure therapy, an elastic bandage is used to apply pressure to the healed wound. This should start within two months after the injury, and it may need to continue for up to two years to achieve full effect.
When properly used, pressure therapy can improve the appearance of scars, make them smaller, enhance flexibility, and reduce the pain of scars.
Silicone Gel Sheeting (SGS)
Another treatment for reducing scarring is silicone gel sheeting (SGS). Although we don’t understand exactly how SGS works to control scarring, the primary belief is that it helps the body manage moisture levels in the healing skin. If healing skin doesn’t have enough moisture, it triggers the production of inflammatory chemicals that extend the inflammatory stage of wound healing. SGS provides the healing wound with moisture levels similar to healed skin. This helps the body to move forward with normal healing without excessive inflammation.
SGS also doesn’t bind to scabs, which allows it to be removed with minimum disruption to healing wounds.
Finally, SGS can take tension off the skin, which keeps the body from forming excess stiff tissue, which can make scars large, rigid, and painful.
For best results, start using SGS as soon as the wound is fully closed.
Get Compensation for Dog Bite Injuries
Even with the best wound care, some dog bite injuries will result in significant scarring. Scarring is also just one of numerous potential impacts from a dog bite. You or a loved one might experience dysfunction, disability, or death. There may also be ongoing trauma related to the attack.
You should not have to pay the costs of treatment for these injuries. In Colorado, the dog owner is responsible for paying these costs. Experienced dog bite lawyer Brian Pushchak can help you get the compensation you are owed for dog bite injuries.
When you work with Pushchak Law, you will benefit from our exclusive Informed Decisions™ Approach. We always start by taking the time to listen to your needs and concerns about your injuries. We want to know what your priorities are. Then, we will recommend the best course of action based on our extensive experience with dog bite injury lawsuits. We will give you our personal contact information and remain personally available to you if you have any questions, concerns, or decisions about your lawsuit – it is always your lawsuit, and you have the final say in how we handle it. Our expertise is at your service.
To learn how Pushchak law can help you after your dog bite attack, please contact us today for a free initial consultation. We serve clients in Denver and the surrounding areas of Colorado.
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