hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
A friend with a port developed a keloid on the scar where the port was put in.
It's thick, redishh-purple, very painful and itchy. You can see lots of little blood vessels in the scar.
I wonder if the underlying tissue could have more scar tissue? Pain has prevented access to the port. The tissue under the skin feels thick and painful too.
Bartonella can cause new blood vessels to form. Is Bart or Lyme associated with keloids?
I read keloids may be a result of small fiber neuropathy...which would make sense, since Lyme may cause small fiber neuropathy.
posted
I started having spontaneous keloids when I was in college. Started with what looked like a pimple on my chest and just kept growing.
That was pre-Lyme. It is now ~3-4" wide and about 1.5" high. It's actually 2 or 3 keloids that spontaneously grew and eventually fused.
It varies in the amount of pain and itchiness. When two of them join, it gets infected, fills with pus. I drain, treat, and it starts over again.
When that happens, it hurts like hell. when it's growing and red and angry it itches. When it's quiet, I don't notice it.
I also have one on the back of my ear from where a piercing in the cartilage didn't heal. (Removing the piercing didn't make it stop growing.)
Thankfully, that one stopped eventually, though my ear does stick out a bit as a result.
That one has even shrunk some, eventually, after it stopped growing and is not angry pink/red anymore, but closer to a cross between yellow/white and my regular skin tone.
Keloids are an immune problem. Scars are the body's way of protecting itself from infection. With keloids, the immune system is overactive and the body doesn't know to stop making scar tissue.
I have looked into every treatment, from steroid injections into the scar (which created other problems I won't go into) to acupuncture, etc. Nothing has ever helped.
Try not to scratch, pick, or otherwise irritate it.
Mine got much worse and started growing much faster when I was chemically injured and my immune system went into overdrive. I have a lot of symptoms of an UPregulated immune system.
Keloids are most common on chest and ears and are more common among people of color and people of Jewish ancestry.
I don't know anything about Keloids and Lyme. Mine seem to actually have slowed down since Lyme, maybe because my immune system is now weakened as well as upregulated.
-Sharon
Posts: 223 | From Western Mass. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Back in 2003 I had some freckles removed from my back, tiny things, and they all healed into giant terrible bullet-like scars. My back looks like it was in the car in that last scene of Bonnie and Clyde.
A year or two later, when I had a colonoscopy, the GI doc got a look at my back and couldn't believe it. She said to everyone in the procedure room, docs and nurses and whoever else, "Take a look at this." They came running over. As they looked, she then told them, shaking her head and clucking her tongue, that this guy "... hasn't been the same since getting Lyme disease."
Believe it or not, everyone there had a Lyme tale to tell.
Of course, I was on versed and valium (V-squared), so this all could have been a figment.
Posts: 845 | From Eastern USA | Registered: Jul 2006
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hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
Very interesting
Posts: 1672 | From AL/WV/OH | Registered: Jun 2006
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cantgiveupyet
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8165
posted
hello hshb- i was just doing a search for my old post and saw you replied to it already :-) Im going to put it here so these can be linked for future reference.
Mine occured after chicken pox. In my brief internet search I remember reading that some people are just more suseptable to having them form than others....some even had them after getting thier ears pierced.
has your friend been to see a dermatologist? Maybe, there is some new treatment out there to shrink the keloid? I feel for you friend they can be itchy and painful at times.
and probably furstrating since it interferes with the port.
-------------------- "Say it straight simple and with a smile."
"Thus the task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet, But to think what nobody has thought yet, About what everybody sees."
-Schopenhauer
pos babs, bart, igenex WB igm/igg Posts: 3156 | From Lyme limbo | Registered: Oct 2005
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
1 of other posts tonight i replied to was about KELOIDS too; on it i put NIH's medlineplus.org web site link listing alot of stuff about it.
showed photos, explanations, clinical studies, etc.
here it is..
i looked at NIH'S medlineplus library and came up with this, and they had 7 photos there similar to yours including one tutu posted.
hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
Thanks for the link Betty!
Keloids can occur after chicken pox, a burn or trauma.
My friend's occured after trauma. a home health nurse shoved the Huber needle in with too much pressure, making the beveled tip of the needle bend into a tiny fish-hook shape.
When it was time to deaccess the needle, the needle snagged & tore through the port's diaphragm, then snagged & got tangled in the skin over the port. Ever since them the area has been inflamed and has been horribly painful.
I read it was rare for a keloid to grow in the underlying tissue, but didn't say it was impossible. This port has to be removed. I want the doctor to biopsy the keloid and anything in the underlying tissue which surrounds the port. I may have a biopsy sent to Igenex too.
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