Severe burn incident leads girl to seek help for damaged ear
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Xeragel® (XSO-797) - $16.30Elise Lutz was nine years old when her parents adopted her from an orphanage. The child had a large burn scar on the right side of her scalp, the Associated Press reports.
No one knows exactly how she was burned, but her mother believes that it may have been boiling water that sloshed down over her head. For years, Elise hid the molten lump that was all that remained of her right ear, carefully styling her hair or wearing caps to keep her friends from seeing the scar.
A desire for pierced ears led her family to research the field of anaplastology, in which medical artists employ Hollywood-like special effects to correct disfigurements. Elise received a lifelike prosthetic ear, which was attached by tiny titanium posts drilled into her skull.
"People who have implant-retained ears or noses or whatever usually think of them really as their own body," said Jerry Schoendorf, the surgeon who created Elise's ear, quoted by the news source.
According to a study from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, approximately 10,000 pediatric burn injuries occur annually in the U.S.
For those who have sustained scars from such an accident, silicone gel sheeting may be a good way to help reduce the appearance of these marks.
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