Skin graft …what does ok feel like

Hi Fi956

I'm not sure whether you refer to the area where the melanoma was, or the site of the skin graft harvest?

In my case the WLE does not feel like normal skin after five years. The WLE affected area of my leg is very large, and only perhaps 70% of it has a skin graft and of that half is skin harvested from my other leg.  The entire WLE has at least a 20% reduction in sensitivity to touch. The skin grafted area feels almost like it has a firm underlay beneath the surface skin.  The area which has skin harvested feels smooth and almost plastic like to touch and the area does not look or feel like anywhere else on my legs. It resembles a shark bite!

The area from where the skin was harvested took some months to heal from livid bright red to pink. It remains a different shade to the rest of my leg.

Looking back over my diary the main healing time took six or more months.  There's alot more detail in my profile post.

The good news however is that after a year, the aches, the soreness, the inflexible feeling, the bee sting sensations of the nerves reconnecting was 90% over and my leg functions fully as it did prior to the operation. Certainly there is still a loss of sensitivity to touch but I'm used to that and I really don't notice it.

Still all that said, each of us had a different size lesion removed and we all heal in different ways so I'm sure results will vary.

I hope this helps and feel free to ask me any other questions,

Take care

J

Sailor2 thanks for the reply really helpful and reassuring

take care

Mine took a fair bit of healing and they had to prescribe a steroid cream to help it towards the end. Probably took about a year before all the scabs had completely gone.

They also recommended using a moisturiser like E45 to help protect it.

Mine is on my face/cheek and still feels a little tightness but you get used to it.