What does your immune system do when you get a cut?

Answer 1

Once you cut yourself, your skin goes through a multi-stage process of regeneration. First, there's theinflammatoryphase, when your skin goes into overdrive to prevent further damage. The blood vessels narrow, and the blood coming out of the wound clots to stop the flow. Your body releases a flood of chemicals that start the healing process, and specialized cells clear the wound of debris over the next several days. Your body also begins a process called epithelialization, in which new skin cells are created to form a protective barrier against bacteria and retain water. Next, there's the proliferativephase, in which you make a lattice of more skin cells and small blood vessels known as capillaries that give the wound its purplish-pink appearance and supply oxygen and nutrients so that the cells can produce proteins. (One of them is collagen,which is what scars are mostly made of.) After two to three weeks, theremodeling phase begins, as the replacement layer becomes stronger and more normal in color. Over the next six months, your replacement skin will become 70 percent as strong as your original hide.