Stretch Marks

Stretch marks typically appear as bands of parallel lines on your skin. These lines are a different color and texture than your normal skin, and they range from purple to bright pink to light gray. When you touch stretch marks with your fingers, you might feel a slight ridge or indentation on your skin. Sometimes, stretch marks feel itchy or sore. These lines commonly appear during or after pregnancy or after a sudden change in your weight. They also tend to occur in adolescents who are rapidly growing. Stretch marks aren’t dangerous, and they often disappear over time. You can have stretch marks just about anywhere, but they’re most common on your stomach, breasts, upper arms, thighs, and buttocks. Stretch marks do not generally produce any symptoms but have a characteristic visual appearance no matter when they appear or what the cause. They initially appear as raised pink to purple lines longitudinally arranged over the abdomen, lateral upper thighs, inner arms, or upper breasts. With time, the purplish-pink color lightens and they appear as silvery lines on the skin, similar to a scar. The purplish-pink scars are termed striae rubra, while the silvery lines are termed striae albae. Stretch marks can also occur in dark-complected people where they appear as dark-brown lines, which are termed striae nigrae. In short, stretch marks are scars that are permanent once formed.

Since 1987, the incidence of DRSP has increased in the United States. Each year, S. infections cause 100,000-135,000 hospitalizations for pneumonia, 6 million cases of otitis media, and over 60,000 cases of invasive disease, including 3300 cases of meningitis. Up to 40% are caused by pneumococci resistant to at least one drug and 15% are due to a strain resistant to 3 or more drugs. Prevalence of DRSP shows wide geographic variation. The treatment for stretch marks is limited, and there is no curative treatment. The most invasive therapies for stretch marks involve physician-administered laser surgery. Improvement in stretch marks with laser therapy is accomplished by wounding the scarred skin and hoping that the newly healed skin will have a more normal, cosmetically acceptable appearance. Medical reports of Nd:YAG laser, radiofrequency devices, and fractional photothermolysis have shown some degree of improvement in stretch mark appearance but not resolution. The earlier the stretch mark is treated, generally the better the result.

Red immature stretch marks are more amenable to treatment than those that have matured to a silvery white. This is because the reddish stretch marks are still healing, and the healing can be modified by intervention. Sometimes, camouflage (the use of cosmetics) is the best option to hide the scars. A spa treatment for stretch marks is the use of microdermabrasion. Microdermabrasion uses a spray head to bombard the skin with tiny salt crystals, baking soda, or aluminum particles to literally sand the skin, a process medically known as exfoliation. While microdermabrasion can temporarily smooth any rough skin around the stretch mark, it cannot remove the stretch mark or make the scar permanently smooth. The prevention of stretch marks is challenging. It appears that stretch marks do not occur when the stretching of the skin is gradual rather than abrupt. Thus, rapid changes in body size should be avoided if possible. Since stretch marks represent small scars, rapid growth of the body can result in tearing of the skin and more stretch marks. Slower changes in body size may allow the skin to adjust more gradually. People with better skin elasticity and less rigid collagen are less likely to develop stretch marks, but it is not possible to modify these skin characteristics at present. Major Research is been done in Germany by Helmholtz Association.