Horrific injuries can do a lot of damage to the human skin. A deep burn can permanently destroy an area of your skin. A sizable open wound, or the aftermath of surgery that has gone wrong can also ravage the skin to the point you could permanently lose a layer of skin. However, it is possible to perform some repair to the damaged area with skin grafting by Ohio medical professionals.
As Heathline explains, a skin graft is a piece of skin that is removed from one area of the body and transplanted onto an area that has lost skin. If a physician determines that you can undergo grafting, you are likely to acquire either a split-thickness graft or a full-thickness graft. Split-thickness grafts are used to cover larger areas and only involve cutting part of the skin from a donor area. A full-thickness graft, by contrast, is much smaller, taking a full area of skin to transplant onto a damaged area.
Be aware that there is no guarantee that a skin graft will take. A possible sign that a graft is not being accepted may occur when blood vessels do not start to develop within the graft and that the graft is not connecting to the rest of the skin. Sometimes the graft may become infected, or blood pools under the graft, or the graft has not rested securely on the wound. In this case, the patient may require another surgery to replace the graft with another one.
Also, while a skin graft may dramatically improve the appearance of a burn or injury victim, it will not fully restore the original appearance of the damaged area. A split-thickness graft may come off as paler compared to the surrounding skin. Generally, however, full-thickness grafts are used for highly visible areas and are more likely to blend in with the rest of the skin.
Skin grafting can be an option for people who have suffered catastrophic injuries. However, since injury victims will have varying needs and cases involving strong injuries will differ, this article should be taken as offering legal advice. Its purpose is limited to educating readers on catastrophic injury topics.
