By Elamangai Pasupathi, BMedSc., medical writer
We have many patients coming into the clinic hoping to get a solution to get rid of their keloid scars. Often painful and overtly visible, keloid scars also have the tendency to grow beyond the initial size of the scar.One of the many success stories from our clinic is Miss A, a patient who found that right after she got her BCG shot at 12 years old, a keloid started forming. “It grew bigger and bigger every day,” she explained, referring to where the scar was on her am. “It was this giant pinkish, purplish worm on my arm and I really hated it. It was very itchy and sometimes painful. I stopped wearing sleeveless tops because of that.” Miss A shared.As part of the keloid treatment, Miss A also underwent radiotherapy. “The idea was to cut and remove the keloid in order to stop the keloid from resurfacing. The radiotherapy was supposed to help by penetrating the skin to a certain depth to which the keloid extended. And it worked.”Prior to this, she had sought out many types of treatments and had tried all sorts of scar and keloid creams. “But none of them worked until I met Dr. Soma.” she shares.Talking about her experience with radiotherapy, she shares that she was initially very frightened by the thought of “radiotherapy” because it sounded very serious. “But in all honesty, I didn’t feel anything at all during the process. And the wound healing after radiotherapy went really well.”“Of course, I still worry that the keloid will grow back again because I’m very keloid-prone. Every scar on my body eventually turns into a keloid. But it’s been many years since radiotherapy and thankfully the keloid has not grown back. I’ll be praying that it doesn’t but if it does, I’ll just come back to Dr. Soma.” she laughs.When asked if she had any advice for anyone going through a similar struggle with keloids, she strongly recommended that they consider radiotherapy. “It worked out really well for me and gave me back the confidence that I needed in my life.”