I have plenty of keloid scars. I've given up long ago trying to get rid of them. But they still pique my curiosity.
Keloids are scars that do not heal normally. They end up as a lump over the site of the wound, as a piece of hard flesh that sometimes irritates. They do not flatten but even grow. The wound may be externally caused, with punctures and lacerations. Areas where the skin is thick are more vulnerable to it, such as the chest and shoulders, and some parts of the face lining the jaw. The wound can also come from boils, which is internally generated. Keloids are rather selective, and there's no telling when or where they would grow.
I've one grow from my left earlobe, and it stuck out like a sore thumb, like a piece of grape. Luckily, I was able to go Boston, to the Lahey Clinic, to have it cut out, and in order to arrest the keloid from returning, it was subjected to radiation. It only had to be done once, and I was told not to go back if the keloid resurfaced. And luckily, I didn't have to.
I have other keloids on my left shoulder, and on my chest and torso, where most of the keloids are. I've been through a series of injections of hydrocortisone to remove them. But it's been a hit or miss approach. Some have subsided yet are visible as hypertrophic scars. But many remained entrenched. There were even keloids that were close enough that decided they needed to be together, and so they got together and fused to form a few superkeloids.
But it is through my ordeal with keloids that I had to go outside conventional medical channels. I ended up fixing other issues I had, even though blasting away the keloid to kingdom come was my goal. So, there is a little to be thankful for in having these keloids. It is cosmetic only, and where once I would be conscious about them, nowadays it is to me just a 3d tattoo by an unskilled artist.
Reading through Peat's articles, I've come to understand keloids with these ideas:
- that it is a form of cancer, but benign, where the skin has lost its ability to differentiate when it regenerates, for one reason or another. The skin does not know to stop dividing and growing. It would stop eventually, but it would leave a mass of tissue that is hard, but this tissue is not what a normal regenerative healing of skin would produce.
- the incidence of keloid is more common the darker the color of skin. This is what I've been told by doctors. If skin color is a key differentiator, I think that this would have to do with melanin. And that perhaps it would also be affected by the level of exposure to sunlight, and vitamin D, and the parathyroid hormone. Would low levels of exposure to sunlight cause more keloids to form? My own experience would push me towards this conclusion. I didn't have any keloid on my chest when I went to the US, but the keloids appeared when I was studying in Rochester, NY, which is up north and receiving less direct sunlight.
-the keloids are very tough, and Ray mentions that as people age, the tissues become tougher as the skin becomes tougher, and this had to do with more collagen being used on the matrix that forms the skin and tissues. It makes me think that the keloid could simply be an expression of an unhealthy environment in the body. What makes this environment unhealthy?
Questions:
1. I had mercury toxicity then. Mercury binds to to the oxygen receptors in the hemoglobin of blood. The higher the toxicity, the less oxygen blood would carry. It could be that with the lack of oxygenation of my cells. Would this condition affect the way my skin heals?
2. I would sweat a lot then. This sweat would make my skin form a rash, or a boil, and this would be a site for keloid formation. I wonder also if my keloid is formed from the skin reacting in an autoimmune way to a foreign substance, such as mercury, which would perhaps find its way into my skin pores and cause a boil to form, with the skin being an organ of elimination. Is this a possibility?
3. Now that I have removed the mercury toxicity, I have regained the normal level of oxygenation and it is seen in my endurance levels when I run (although I've stopped running). I am less prone to forming keloids now, but the ones that are already there remain with no sign of them going away. Is there anything I could try to remove these keloids? A gentle approach? If it is a cancer, how do I get the body to dissolve it away on its own the away the body eats a cancer by phagocytic action? Do phagocytes work on the skin-surface level? I know I said I'm not interested in finding a cure, but hey, I'm also curious from the standpoint of it being a cancer, however benign it really is.
4. Given that keloid affect darker-skinned people more, is there any mechanism involving the lack of sunlight that would have a bearing on mediating a keloid? A lack of calcium? A lack of vitamin D? Or an excess of PTH?
Thanks.
Keloids are scars that do not heal normally. They end up as a lump over the site of the wound, as a piece of hard flesh that sometimes irritates. They do not flatten but even grow. The wound may be externally caused, with punctures and lacerations. Areas where the skin is thick are more vulnerable to it, such as the chest and shoulders, and some parts of the face lining the jaw. The wound can also come from boils, which is internally generated. Keloids are rather selective, and there's no telling when or where they would grow.
I've one grow from my left earlobe, and it stuck out like a sore thumb, like a piece of grape. Luckily, I was able to go Boston, to the Lahey Clinic, to have it cut out, and in order to arrest the keloid from returning, it was subjected to radiation. It only had to be done once, and I was told not to go back if the keloid resurfaced. And luckily, I didn't have to.
I have other keloids on my left shoulder, and on my chest and torso, where most of the keloids are. I've been through a series of injections of hydrocortisone to remove them. But it's been a hit or miss approach. Some have subsided yet are visible as hypertrophic scars. But many remained entrenched. There were even keloids that were close enough that decided they needed to be together, and so they got together and fused to form a few superkeloids.
But it is through my ordeal with keloids that I had to go outside conventional medical channels. I ended up fixing other issues I had, even though blasting away the keloid to kingdom come was my goal. So, there is a little to be thankful for in having these keloids. It is cosmetic only, and where once I would be conscious about them, nowadays it is to me just a 3d tattoo by an unskilled artist.
Reading through Peat's articles, I've come to understand keloids with these ideas:
- that it is a form of cancer, but benign, where the skin has lost its ability to differentiate when it regenerates, for one reason or another. The skin does not know to stop dividing and growing. It would stop eventually, but it would leave a mass of tissue that is hard, but this tissue is not what a normal regenerative healing of skin would produce.
- the incidence of keloid is more common the darker the color of skin. This is what I've been told by doctors. If skin color is a key differentiator, I think that this would have to do with melanin. And that perhaps it would also be affected by the level of exposure to sunlight, and vitamin D, and the parathyroid hormone. Would low levels of exposure to sunlight cause more keloids to form? My own experience would push me towards this conclusion. I didn't have any keloid on my chest when I went to the US, but the keloids appeared when I was studying in Rochester, NY, which is up north and receiving less direct sunlight.
-the keloids are very tough, and Ray mentions that as people age, the tissues become tougher as the skin becomes tougher, and this had to do with more collagen being used on the matrix that forms the skin and tissues. It makes me think that the keloid could simply be an expression of an unhealthy environment in the body. What makes this environment unhealthy?
Questions:
1. I had mercury toxicity then. Mercury binds to to the oxygen receptors in the hemoglobin of blood. The higher the toxicity, the less oxygen blood would carry. It could be that with the lack of oxygenation of my cells. Would this condition affect the way my skin heals?
2. I would sweat a lot then. This sweat would make my skin form a rash, or a boil, and this would be a site for keloid formation. I wonder also if my keloid is formed from the skin reacting in an autoimmune way to a foreign substance, such as mercury, which would perhaps find its way into my skin pores and cause a boil to form, with the skin being an organ of elimination. Is this a possibility?
3. Now that I have removed the mercury toxicity, I have regained the normal level of oxygenation and it is seen in my endurance levels when I run (although I've stopped running). I am less prone to forming keloids now, but the ones that are already there remain with no sign of them going away. Is there anything I could try to remove these keloids? A gentle approach? If it is a cancer, how do I get the body to dissolve it away on its own the away the body eats a cancer by phagocytic action? Do phagocytes work on the skin-surface level? I know I said I'm not interested in finding a cure, but hey, I'm also curious from the standpoint of it being a cancer, however benign it really is.
4. Given that keloid affect darker-skinned people more, is there any mechanism involving the lack of sunlight that would have a bearing on mediating a keloid? A lack of calcium? A lack of vitamin D? Or an excess of PTH?
Thanks.
