Condition : Skin damage

Condition Skin damage

What is skin damage?

Skin is your largest organ, and it protects you from outside elements, helps you maintain your body temperature, and allows you to feel touch sensations. It’s important to take care of your skin and treat it well when damage happens.

When the tissue under the skin is exposed, this is called an ulcer.

Read more about ulcers

Signs of skin damage include:

pain, throbbing, or aching
itching
bleeding
swelling
peeling or flaking
blisters (pockets of skin filled with blood or clear or milky fluid)
the appearance of cracking or scales
spots
change in colour
change in texture (how it feels to touch, such as dry and rough or oily)
change in temperature

What causes skin damage?

Damage to the skin may happen because of:

an injury, such as a cut or graze
contact with something very hot (burns and scalds)
exposure to too much sun (sunburn)
exposure to very cold temperatures (frostbite)
a skin condition like eczema
an allergic reaction (contact dermatitis and hives)
a problem with the immune system (such as in psoriasis)

Complications, such as infection and scarring, can happen if the healing process is slowed down or interrupted. They’re more likely if you smoke, drink lots of alcohol, have a medical condition like diabetes, or don’t take good care of the wound (for example, by keeping it clean and dry and not picking or scratching it).

If you have neuropathy (a lack of sensation due to damaged nerves), you should check your skin for damage on a regular basis to avoid complications.

Without protection, regular or extreme exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light (from the sun, tanning beds, or processes like welding) can cause a range of conditions, from actinic keratoses (solar keratoses), where patches of skin become dry and scaly, to skin cancer, which can be serious.