It’s Your Skin: Take Care of Those Stretch Marks

Written by Bakersfield Magazine

Stretch marks. Those little skin imperfections are, for most people, the bane of their beauty regime.

Nearly everyone on the planet has experience with stretch marks. We get them as a result of a growth spurt as a teenager, as a result of pregnancy, and by gaining or losing weight. Our skin, though elastic, just can’t keep up with the changes in our bodies.

According to StretchMarks.org, “stretch marks, or striae, are lesions that tend to form in the dermis [skin] during periods of hormonal flux, with weight gain or loss, pregnancy, and other periods of hormone change. When our body’s elastic fibers deep beneath the epidermis [top layer of skin] become damaged, these scars can appear. Women often tend to get them on their breasts, thighs, hips, abdomen, arms, around the belly button, buttocks, and back. This is especially true during puberty and pregnancy when a rapid onset of marks can appear. Initially, they may be red, but as the redness fades, they may turn white.” And, let’s be honest, they’re not pretty, even when they turn a lighter color.

According to Skinabrasion.net, “stretch marks form because the hormone glucocorticoid becomes overactive and stops the skin from producing collagen and elastin fibers responsible for keeping rapidly growing skin taut. In other words, the skin grows without elastic support in its thickest layer and is left with signs of tear[ing] called stretch marks.”

If you have stretch marks, you’ve probably spent some time trying to get rid of them. Since stretch marks can impact our self-esteem and confidence, we thought we’d mention some of the procedures and methods dermatologists use to help reduce the appearance of stretch marks.

Options that are classified as surgical treatments are chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and laser treatments. These types of treatments can cost between $100 and $800 a session and more than one session is often needed. So, while these can be costly options, they’re really the most effective methods out there.

The cost might be a deterrent for some people. Heck, we all know someone who will swear up and down about how cocoa butter kept them from getting stretch marks. And we may have heard a story from a friend-of-a-friend who claims retinol-based creams and collagen-infused gels are all you need to get rid of stretch marks. People have even used home remedies made mostly of olive oil and have boasted of their success. But what works for one person won’t work for all. And, most of the time, there is another factor at play causing the success of that home remedy. So you should always consult your doctor about any treatment you’re wanting to start...just in case you happen to be allergic to one of the ingredients in your sister’s “guaranteed stretch mark reducer” cream.

They might, however, recommend some of the following options:

Laser Surgery

This type of surgery is primarily effective on new stretchmarks that are still red or purplish in appearance because the skin is not fully healed. Once the stretch marks have turned a lighter color, almost silver, this method is less productive. But because stretch marks often stand out most for people with fair skin, this is great option for them. This type of surgery can get pricey.

Radio Frequency

Again, this method works for people who are looking to learn how to get rid of stretch marks that are newly acquired. Radio frequency therapy for stretch marks is a non-invasive, safe, and less expensive option to improve skin’s appearance. The treatments induce collagen production which serves to eliminate wrinkles and stretch marks.

Microdermabrasion

Microdermabrasion uses a crystal flow to sandblast the skin and make the ridge of these stretch marks less noticeable.

Microdermabrasion treatment is an advanced form of exfoliation. Everybody has dead skin cells on their top layer of facial and body skin and the body is continuously in the process of replacing these dead cells by producing new skin cells. Microdermabrasion treatment speeds up the process by removing more dead skin cells in a shorter period of time. This encourages the faster production of more fresh skin cells. Besides the peeling effect, microdermabrasion also jumpstarts collagen production in the skin, which increases its elasticity and helps it contract the marks into much thinner scars (unfortunately, the torn dermal cells never fully recover).

Although microdermabrasion is an effective stretch mark treatment, it is not entirely effective at eliminating stretch marks 100 percent. It is more common to talk about microdermabrasion as a stretch mark treatment in terms of reduction. This shouldn’t be interpreted as a limitation of microdermabrasion for treating stretch marks, because, in fact, it is very rare to completely get rid of stretch marks regardless of what treatment you decide to try.

This is due to the nature of stretch marks. They occur at the dermis layer of the skin. The skin is made up of several layers, and the dermis is the middle layer. This makes it difficult for microdermabrasion, or any other treatment that is applied at the surface of the skin, to have great effects on the dermis layer of skin.

Over 10-12 abrasions, the skin surrounding the stretch marks is brought down to a level closer to the stretch mark itself. Basically, the stretch marks are still there, deep into the skin, but they are less visible.

There are also options that include plastic surgery to tighten loose skin, which can reduce the appearance of stretch marks, but, as one would expect, that surgery is even more expensive than these other methods.

Since our appearance can and will affect our confidence out in the world, it might be useful to talk to your doctor about options to get rid of your stretch marks. Hopefully before you try rubbing your body down with Aunt Irma’s Stretch Mark-B-Gone.

Photos by ©istockphoto.com/jgroup/imagestock

Article appeared in our 28-1 Issue - April 2011