How does your body know when a wound is fully healed and when to stop healing?
In: Biology
Just to set the background: The main goal of the body is to maintain balance. Cells in our body are usually “covered” by materials such as cell membranes that help them maintain balance in the body. Once these membranes are damaged, the inside of the cell is exposed to a different environment causing a reaction which is viewed as disruption of the balance inside the cell.
Basically what happens is that the damaged cells release certain “clotting” substances that react on platelets on your blood which results to blood clots. This will close the wound in a series of steps with the last one involving the removal of the clot itself. Once the damaged cells are no longer exposed or “wounded”, it stops sending the clotting signals and release normal substances that prevent the formation of blood clots. This event returns the body to its balance
What would happen if I injected calcium into a scar?
I have yet to see a 5 year old answer, so im going to give it a shot. In short, your cells talk to each other. When some are hurt they tell cells without a type (stem cells) to turn into the type your body needs to replace then
sometimes your body never does stop “healing” or rebuilding your bone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva
Sometimes your body doesn’t know — hypertrophic scars are an example of this, and keloids a more extreme example. These are caused by fibroblast proliferation and excessive collagen (building blocks of scars). Keloids must sometimes be managed with steroid injections, or other not so successful treatment modalities.
Your cells can hear their neighbors. When you’re injured, some cell’s neighbors are missing. Those cells start multiplying until they can hear a neighbor again.
What about an open wound that “weeps” a clear or pink tinged fluid? Does that have anything to do with the length of time it takes to heal?
Your body has essentially three phases of wound healing.
1. Alarm phase where cells involved in the tissue damage release signaling molecules that recruit other cells to get their ass over and help stem bleeding and kill microbes.
2. Resolving phase where recruited cells begin to transition from an activated defense state to laying down new tissue and clearing debri
3. Resolution phase where final touches are put on the wound site and scab like tissue is transformed into normal or scar tissue.
The transition between these phases is largely determined by what the cells see in the wound site. If microbe or damage persists, phase one may be longer and more intense. If wound is broken open or aggravated, phase two may be longer etc.
When blood is coming out of a wound, it just dries up, creating a seal over the wound until the skin under it has grown back (and skin is always reproducing itself, you just don’t notice).
Your blood also has cells in it that help battle infection and viruses, like white blood cells and antibodies. Those are always in the blood and do basically nothing until they come across a bacteria or virus that shouldn’t be there. There is a reaction that should kill the intruder. Once the intruder is killed, there is nothing left to cause a reaction, so everything just turns back to normal.
You body really doesn’t control any of that. The only thing it does do is making sure that there are enough cells and antibodies.
Your body never knows it’s fully healed, it just stops sending a healing response when it lacks a signal saying you’re hurt. When a cell is damaged it releases calcium, which then triggers a bunch of healing responses. Once the calcium has been removed (dispersed, taken up by other cells, bound to other things) the initial signal is gone, and then the secondary/following signals kinda just peter out. This varies widely based on the location/type/severity of the injury. There is no final “tada” signal saying everything’s back up and running.
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