Scar Appearance after a Cleft Lift
What does the scar look like after a cleft lift operation?
This is a commonly asked question, and like most medical questions, the answer depends on various things.
- The severity of the pilonidal disease before the cleft lift.
- Whether there have been previous operations, and exactly what kind.
- If the patient has any dermatologic (skin) or autoimmune diseases.
- The patient’s specific skin type and propensity for having healing issues.
- Whether there are post operative suture reactions.
We have other pages on this website that specifically address the shape of the gluteal cleft after cleft lift surgery, and that is not what we are referring to in this post. This is about how prominent a scar will appear after surgery. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict this before the operation since there are so many factors involved, however we can discuss the variations in scar appearance to help you understand how this might look.
Here are a few examples of the scar appearance after a cleft lift:
This is an incision that healed normally, and the scar looks very good at a year and a half after surgery.
This patient had extensive reactions to the dissolving sutures. Here is the appearance 6 months after surgery. At this point the suture material has been absorbed, but the scar is a bit wider and darker than normal.
This patient developed a hypertrophic scar, also called a “keloid”. Note how it is raised and pinker than the surrounding skin. It is unpredictable when this will happen, but in our experience it happen less than 1% of the time, and may be associated with some underlying autoimmune disease.
These are some examples of what the healed scar from a cleft lift might look like. In general, even if there are some issues in the first few months after surgery, these scars soften up and the color starts to fade, and the appearance becomes more and more acceptable over time. If you would like to see more examples of the appearance of a cleft lift, this link will take you to a gallery of additional photos.