Hi there,

I was sleeved on March 7th, and I am happily 4 months post-op today. ?

My question is to those who are post-op in regards to the surgery scars. I was given a scar cream that I try to use, but I was wondering how long it can take for scars to fade / lessen in appearance. I know they won't go away completely, but mine are a deep purple, and as I'm very pale, super noticeable. I am wondering if there is anything else that I can be doing to help the fading process, and, for those who are farther along in their post-op journey, when you found the scars lessened the most in appearance?

Im also 4 months out- and they are slowly getting less noticeable. After my hysterectomy, I used silicone tape to help them fade, but it can take up to a year for them to fade. I also recently saw something about using leg makeup to cover them up if you want to wear a swimsuit or something, but I haven’t tried that as I want to keep the sun off of them for at least the first year. Just a thought.

Some of mine are deep purple,too ! The one where they slid the stomach out of is Really purple. I don't know what's going on ,either. I want to ask my doc,but I don't see him till the end of Aug. Hopefully you and I will get some answers here from "our experts"

I think scar healing and appearance is REALLY variable from person to person. I tend to scar fairly dark and knew that going into surgery so I wasn't worried about it. I did use BioOil for a while, but then got lazy and stopped. I'm almost 2 years out now and I do still have scars, but they continue to lighten and even if they didn't, I would be totally ok with it.

I'm also super, super fair skinned. I had a different laparoscopic abdominal surgery about 20 years ago and it took a few years for the scars to fade to pink. About 5 years afterward, they weren't particularly noticeable unless you were looking for them. They've never entirely faded.

TBH my belly looks like a snakes and ladders board game. So many scars and stretch marks ! Mine have never faded and are part of me

I'm 3 years post-op. I did absolutely nothing to treat my incisions and I have no visible scars now. If I look really closely (I had to refer to old pictures to see where the scars were so I could tell where to look), the skin is ever so slightly raised where the incisions were, but the color is no different than the surrounding skin.

Most of my scars/stretchmarks fade to white eventually and are hardly noticeable in about a year for me. My post op scars are still pink at 3 months. Planned to use Mederma on them but wanted to avoid using anything topical and risk getting an infection before they were completely healed.

I did start cryotherapy yesterday and was told my scars will fade to white quicker with continued treatment so I may not even need the creams.

Just depends on how you heal & how you scar. You do need to use the cream regularly to get any benefit. You could try a silicon scar tape too.

I’m very pale but do tend to scar. Mine aren’t all that noticeable unless you really look just a short white line & they were opened a second time for my gall removal surgery. I tried to take a pxt but because they’re along my waist all you could see was the pressure marks of my leggings waistband. ??

When scars are purple they are still healing, vitamin E oil used topically can help a lot, but you must be devoted to using it twice daily. Once your scars are healed, if you are not satisfied, medical tattooing might be a viable option, they will match your skin tone and color and cover/blend the scars. There are regular tattoo artists that can do this too, obviously, look at their portfolios, otherwise, medical tattooists are trained specifically in scar cover, blending, camouflage as well as other things like creating a nipple, where one never was or was lost. A lot of people get their skin removal scars cover this way. Hope that helps. Some great examples from a training studio are under the Instagram name elevateyoustudio_medicaltattoo

Also a super pale person and at 20 months my scars from laparoscopic surgery are just pale lines. To be honest they blend really well into my wrinkly tummy ?

2 years out and went to show someone 6 months ago and I couldn't even find them lol

I am 22 months PO, I am 40 and fair-skinned and my scars are minimal enough I have to look for them. The only prominent scar on my abdomen is from 2014 when I had my gallbladder removed.