Risks, Effects & Healing
If you’ve been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, usually considered DCIS to stage 3A breast cancer, you will likely have surgery. Unfortunately, any time an incision is made through the layers of the skin, a scar is inevitable. Plastic surgery doesn’t mean you won’t have a scar, only that plastic surgeons use the science behind healing to minimize the appearance of the scar as much as possible.
That said, disfigurement due to breast cancer treatment is not inevitable.
Healing and Dealing With Scars
One of the best ways to limit scarring is by preventing infection immediately after surgery. Many patients are sent home from the hospital with drains attached to their incisions that remove excess blood and lymph fluid from the site. After these are taken out a few days later, patients need to keep the wound as clean as possible as it continues to heal and carefully follow doctor’s orders regarding bandage changes.
Smoking can result in delayed healing, and it is important to quit smoking if you smoke in order to have the best cosmetic result from your surgery.
Other scar-reducing techniques include lightly stretching and massaging the scar area daily during the first year when most healing occurs (talk to your surgeon first.) Known by therapists as transverse friction massage, it involves gently manipulating the skin perpendicularly above and below the incision, from the collar bone to the bottom of the ribcage, and from the breastbone to under the armpits.
Since the implications of scarring aren’t only cosmetic – pain and tightness can also result – professionals are sometimes needed to help ease the patient’s scar tissue into a healthier healing pattern. Using vigorous, deep and soft-tissue massage, physical therapists may help relieve the pain and feelings of constriction. New techniques are also being developed in using lasers, Botox, and cytokines.
Alternative therapies can include yoga, which involves deep breathing and whole-body stretches, and also acupuncture, which uses thin needles inserted just below the skin in certain areas to relieve pain. One way to deal with a scar is to conceal it with a tattoo. That’s an option gaining in popularity.
Research Abstract
Current methods employed in the prevention and minimization of surgical scars
(Via Verywell Health)