How does your body know to grow skin where it doesn’t normally have to? Such as over the stump of a lost limb or the socket of a pulled tooth?

Question

Had a tooth pulled recently, really curious how my body knows to grow skin over the empty socket when it doesn’t normally have to grow skin there. It’s not like your body tries to grow skin over your teeth.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Stumps of lost limbs are a result of closing wounds in such a way that the stump is covered by skin. The body doesn’t actually generate new skin – see here for an example: http://www.medicalexhibits.com/obrasky/2008/08082_01X.jpg

I’ll leave the tooth socket to someone else as I don’t think I could explain this properly.