Little pucker of skin at the far end of my scar at 6 months. Is a dog ear something that settles or something you get revised?

Six months post full tummy tuck and delighted with the middle of my scar, which is fading nicely and sits under everything. The problem is the ends. On my right hip there is a small puckered fold where the scar finishes, maybe the length of my thumb, and it stands proud when I stand and mostly disappears when I lie down. Left side has a smaller version.

I gather these are called dog ears, which is a horrible name for something quite small. What I cannot work out from searching is whether they are a swelling thing that keeps improving, or a skin thing that is now permanent and only fixable with more surgery. My surgeon said at three months "let's see it at a year" which I know is the sensible answer but is also not an answer.

Anyone had one settle on its own between six months and a year? And if you got it revised, was that a proper operation or an in-clinic job? Trying to work out whether to make my peace with it.

Mine improved a lot between six and eleven months, to the point where I stopped noticing it. I was convinced at six months it was permanent. Whether that was swelling going down or the skin relaxing I have no idea, but the shape at a year was genuinely different from the shape at six months.

Mine did not settle, and I had it revised at fourteen months. For me it was local anaesthetic, an afternoon, a small extension of the scar at that end, and a fortnight of being careful rather than a fortnight of recovery. Nothing like the original surgery. My surgeon called it a tidy-up and did not charge for it, which I gather varies enormously and is worth asking about before you agree to anything.

What I would say is that I am glad I waited. At six months I was ready to demand it be fixed immediately and by twelve I had a much clearer idea of what was actually left to fix.

Both of mine went. Not to nothing, but from something I could see standing in front of a mirror to something I have to look for. Nine months-ish. The ends of the scar were also the last bit to fade colour-wise for me, which made the pucker look more obvious than it was.

To answer the general question directly: both outcomes are real, and six months is genuinely too early to know which one you have. A pucker at the end of a transverse abdominal scar is the excess where a long incision meets tissue that has not been drawn in equally, and in the first year it is a mixture of true excess skin, residual swelling and fullness in the fat layer at the flank. The swelling and fatty components frequently improve, sometimes substantially, over the six to twelve month window. A genuine excess of skin does not resolve on its own. That is why your surgeon's answer was to review it at a year, which is the standard framing rather than a brush-off.

Where revision is chosen, it is often a comparatively small procedure, sometimes under local anaesthetic, extending the scar slightly at that end to remove the excess. That is a general description of the approach, not a prediction for you: what your own scar needs depends on how much of that pucker is skin, and only an examination settles it. The site's guide covers what is normally considered and when: revision after a tummy tuck, and the fading timeline is in the tummy tuck scar.

One thing worth flagging separately. A pucker that behaves as described, appearing on standing and flattening when you lie down, is one thing. A lump that is growing, tender, red or warm is a different conversation and belongs with your surgeon promptly rather than with a thread.

That is more useful than anything I found in three weeks of searching, thank you. Waiting for the twelve month review then, and I will ask specifically how much of it is skin versus everything else so I actually understand what I am looking at. Slightly comforted that a revision, if it comes to that, is not the whole thing again.