Much of it depends on your unique scarring characteristics.

1 - AVOID sun exposure and use high SPF sunscreen if you must expose that skin. Scars tan more readily than skin, and tend to retain the melanin.

2 - After any cuts have healed, daily firm massage with any oil will break down the collagen a bit and minimize the scar tissue's visibility. this takes a LONG time, and there are no magic oils ... any non-tocic oil will work.

3 - Makeup intended to cover varicose veins works well on scars too.

4 - Time ... scars tend to contract as they age, so what you see now is not what you will see in 5 or 10 years. Take reference photos (dated clear photos) because you will forget what they used to look like and think you aren't making progress.

helichrysum essential oil has a reputation for helping with this. dilute it with a bit of carrier oil before applying.

results often depend on the age of the scar, nutritional status, etc. good luck! glad to know you are taking better care of yourself now....

Best results are time and caring for your body's health - good nutrition, drinking plenty of water, exercise, sleep. These are all the things that help our bodies to heal and be strong. Mind and soul too. :)

FataMorgana

I wondered if comfrey might help and found the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers is not a very good source for health info, especially when its source is the quackery-laden website tybil.com (which also recommends home-brewed toxic "oleander tea" as a self-cure for cancer).

To reduce scars, comfrey would need to dissolve away collagen (an action it has not been shown to have). Comfrey is also too toxic for internal use, and pregnant women and children should avoid even topical use (recommendations coming from herbalists).

What positive suggestions would you have, Eric?

Not herbal, but when I had surgery, my surgeon recommended Vitamin E for scarring.

lazygardens had some good ideas.

Two commonly touted anti-scar topical treatments (vitamin E and onion extract) don't seem to be effective - vitamin E may even make matters worse.

"Negative" recommendations that save people time and money are probably better than "positive" recommendations for products like comfrey that are useless for scarring and may actually be harmful.

no snark, just fact: if you want negatives eric is your guy, it's who he is. he's on this forum to put herbalism down rather than be supportive and help folks.

conversely if you want positive information steer clear of him.

the above is not my opinion, read his posts and see for yourself.

My interest is in providing good information, not personal attacks on other posters.

There'd be more life in this forum if the ad hominems would cease.

There are only so many frequent discussions one can take before resorting to that, unless the person enjoys it.

But mainly it is true. Only one line out of your first two posts wasn't focusing on either disagreement with other people's cures or focusing on the negative aspects of things.

You would do much better to help by suggesting your own remedies, rather than putting down others'. The latter will only cause people to find disagreements with your post or defend themselves, and start arguments.

"Only one line out of your first two posts wasn't focusing on either disagreement with other people's cures or focusing on the negative aspects of things."

That leaves me one up on you. Your "contribution" to this thread consists entirely of criticizing me.

The thread has been dormant for over three weeks. Was it really necessary to revive it solely for the purpose of a personal attack?

Well my take on this thread would be that apart from possibly surgery and microdermabrasion, there's no way to deal with scarring except time. Neither of these are herbal-based cures, which is why I didn't post them. The best thing would have been prevention; using something like egg white treatments or silver ion stem cell therapy while the injury was still healing.

That said, three weeks is almost nothing, judging by this forums' activity. So while it wasn't nessesary, it wouldn't be detrimental either.

There are a number of websites promoting colloidal silver/"nano" silver as a supposed remedy for scarring/wounds/gangrene etc.

These products are touted as activating stem cells to cause healing, but evidence that they can heal or prevent injury (much less cause "regeneration") is lacking. This appears to be yet another push to sell unproven remedies using scientific buzzwords (in this instance, "nanoparticles" and "stem cells").

First of all Colliodial, Nano, Hydrosolized, and Ionic silver, are different due to the particulate size, process used, and therefore treatment. Plus usually a formula of activated charcoal and several other ingredients is the appropriate remedy for the early stages of gangrene. At least not for topical application as we're discussing here.

There must be some amount of evidence proving silver's ability to heal, considering it's often used in mainstream medicine for burn patients where major treatment is needed.

Whether or not you believe these- or any remedies without research, is up to you. Unfortunately, it's next to impossible to prove these things in a fashion that's more than anecdotal. I believe many skeptics like you are very aware of the fact that since there is very little demand for studies on many alternative cures(due to most people going with mainstream medicine), you can use such an argument to your advantage within these conversations, because you know full well the request cannot be met.

It's a wonder you claim to understand the many clinical research papers you quote though, when you're so averse to perfectly appropriate medical terms and simply call them buzzwords. I guess it's good that people here stick only to already proven cures for things instead of trying to improve on them, otherwise things would fall apart with that attitude.

Silver in topical form has been used (along with other treatments) on burn patients. But that relates to antibiotic activity. I haven't seen any good evidence that silver products are capable of improving the appearance of scars.

"there is very little demand for studies on many alternative cures"

Actually there's been plenty of past and ongoing research on "alternative cures" (just check the PubMed scientific literature database; you'll find thousands of recent articles). And the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has spent over a billion dollars to date (your tax money at work) researching alt med (with nothing much to show for it).

Ever notice how alt med supporters will cite the large percentage of prescription drugs that were developed from plants and other natural substances - and practically in the same breath, claim that no one researches natural substances for use as drugs, because they supposedly can't be patented? ;)