Scar Therapy

At Dr. Karen Horton’s Plastic Surgery practice, your care does not simply end after your surgery. We want to make sure that you are fully cared for with a wide range of services to meet your aesthetic goals.

Approximately six to eight weeks after surgery, Dr. Horton’s surgical patients will have an appointment to receive education about scar therapy. While you will always have a scar, and since genetics play a role in how scars form, the long-term appearance of your surgical scar depends in large part on how you care for it during the first year.

Scar Therapy involves three primary components:

• Topical treatments
• Massage therapy
• Laser treatments (if needed)

Once all your incision sites have healed, we recommend applying Biocorneum®, or for smaller incisions Improscar stick, which are topical medical-grade liquid silicones containing sun protection, twice daily for a minimum of six months after your surgery. For your convenience, we offer these products in the office, as they are generally not available over-the-counter. We also advise our patients to massage their scars daily using a technique that you will learn during your Scar Therapy appointment. If your scars are still dark or discolored at six months after surgery, we may recommend you have IPL/laser treatments to improve their appearance, provided here in our office.

Please be sure you have a scar therapy appointment scheduled six to eight weeks after your surgery with one of our Registered Nurses, as this is the optimal time to begin this treatment. Exceptions are labiaplasty and nipple surgery, which do not require scar therapy. We are here to answer any questions you may have about your scar or the healing process!

Learn more about scars and scar therapy on our Postoperative Instructions page.