Aldara Scar.....

[nyc123]

I was diagnosed with genital warts and prescribed Aldara 3x times a week. After using it for about 2-3 months I was informed that the lab made a mistake and I was missdiagnosed.

Now almost a year and a half later I still have a red scar from

the Aldara treatment( about 1 inch long).

I was hoping it would go away but now I am

dealing with the fact that it wont. I have olive dark skin and the red scar on my penis is very noticable.Is there any kind of

cosmetic treatment/surgeory that might help me cover up the scar? I was told that maybe medical tattoo is the way to go but wanted to know if there is somekind of darkening cream I can use that would bring back the loss of pigmantation or any other options that would help me reagin my natural color.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

I am not familiar with either a wrong lab test for genital warts or a scar from Aldara.  If the test was a biopsy (I can't think of another relevant one), then the result is almost never definitive one way or another only suggestive.  As for Aldara, it can cause irritation, but not a linear scar, at least so far as I know.



I thin k you need a skin doctor to look at you and tell you what's actually going on.  As to what can be done for the mark, it may be that there is nothing, but you'll never know until you actually find out what's there.



Good luck.



Dr. Rockoff