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CARING FOR THE SKIN
Skin Surgery
Skin surgery is a painful an costly process and has to be carried out only by an experienced surgeon under anaesthesia. There are two important aspects of skin surgery: accidental surgery and plastic surgery.
In case of an accident, the role of the skin is an important point to be considered. If the skin is not given immediate attention, the accidental wound will have many complications. When two layers of ruptured skin are brought together by careful stitches, protection is given to the underlying organs and thus, the body defenses come forward like a mother who protects her child in her lap when the child is in trouble. So the point to keep in mind is that in the even of an accident, the skin flaps must be protected to give a healthy cover to the underlying tissues and organs. Within six hours of the accident the wound must be stitched, otherwise the doctor’s work becomes more difficult and treatment becomes more expensive for the patient in terms of time and money as well as cosmetically more complicated.
Skin grafting is simply plastic surgery. When the skin is wrinkled, the extra part of the skin is surgically removed and skin is stitched. Skin grafting, either by free grafts or pedicled flaps, is necessary for optimum healing, and to m limit the deformity or disability that occurs when a large area has been lost by injury or burns, disease ( varicose ulcers) or by surgical excision of some carcinomas. Free skin grafts provide the simplest method of restoring the skin cover. But they can be used only when the raw surface is composed of healthy vascularised tissues or clean granulations. Ischaemia or infection prevents the healing process.
Split thickness grafts are the ones most generally used though they have a tendency to shrink. They are usually taken from the thigh by means of a special knife. The graft may be affixed by sutures or postage, stamp=sized flaps, and the epithelium grows out from them to cover the intervening bare areas. The proper aseptic precautions are observed for both the grafted area and the donor site ( mostly the thigh). A full thickness skin graft, without the fat content, is more effective and gives better colour and texture than the split skin graft. It does not show any tendency to contract and is more useful for the cosmetic areas like the face. But it needs more precautions and better care.
The following medical advice has been given by Dr. Jitender Arora, an aminent skin specialist.
Small Tags of Skin
I often receive queries like the following cry the help:
I am an 18-year-old girl from Rajasthan with a very fair complexion. How do I get rid of the skin tags on my body? During my childhood, when our family was staying in rural areas, tattoos were very popular. These look very odd and shameful now that I am an adult. I feel embarrassed about the way I look. How do I get rid of these skin tags?
Small tags of skin are very common on the neck and in the armpits and groin. They can be removed by tying a fine thread around the stalks so that they drop off. They can be snipped off with sterile scissors or burnt off, but removing them does not prevent more arriving.
Removing tattoos is difficult and unsatisfactory as the tattoos is replaced by a more unsightly scar. Removal must be done only by a doctor, otherwise disasters occur. The tattoos can be removed by cutting them out by Dermabrasion, for example, by replacing the tattoo with discoloured hairless rough skin, by Salabrasion ( superficial dermabrasion using salt, by laser) a new experimental treatment which scars and should be used only in hospitals ( and by infrared rays in which very intense heat is applied to the skin) the treatment is quick and simple but leaves scars if done by inexperienced hands.
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