Your skin after spinal cord injury

When you have a spinal cord injury, the receptors in your skin below the level of your injury become disconnected from your brain. Messages travelling between your brain and your skin are also disrupted.

This results in a number of changes:

• Awareness of sensations of pain, pressure, touch and temperature variations on the skin surface are lost or altered below the level of your injury.
• Control of blood vessels and sweat glands in your skin is lost below the level of your injury. This makes it difficult to maintain body temperature especially if you have a spinal cord injury at or above T6 level.
• Blood pressure is also compromised due to loss of control over blood vessels in the skin below the level of injury. If you have an injury at or above T6 level, your blood pressure will be severely disrupted.
• You no longer have protective reflexes below the level of your spinal cord injury. This means you will no longer quickly and automatically move away from danger such as a hot or sharp object.