It feels good to be able to finally lose weight. Perhaps it was easy for you, or perhaps every pound was a struggle, but now it’s more-or-less over. You have reached a healthy weight for your body, and no longer have to worry about developing heart disease or diabetes. You have confidence.

However, no matter how much weight you have lost, chances are you may still be stuck with a reminder of the “old you”: stretch marks. Most women who recover from pregnancy end up having these tell-tale marks, which are formally known as “stria” among dermatologists. Women–and men–who gain weight for other reasons, or who otherwise significantly grow in bodily volume, also end up with striae. Stria that affect post-pregnant women are called “striae gravidarum.”

Stria is Latin for “line” or “groove,” and that is just what stretch marks are. They are visible “cracks” and tears in the skin’s elastic middle layer, the dermis. They occur whenever the skin stretches so much, because of the body’s growth, that its natural collagen and elastin fibers are no longer sufficient to hold it together.

What is so frustrating about stretch marks for most people is that they never disappear, at least, not on their own. You may lose the weight of pregnancy, you may end up as thin or as healthy as you ever wanted to be, you may have a completely normal body weight for your gender and height, but–if your dermis has been stretched beyond its limits at any point in your life–you will still have stretch marks, and, consequently, the look of being “unhealthy.”

Can stretch marks be made to go away at all? There are surgeries that may help. On the more economical end of stretch mark treatments that are still very effective, there are certain creams that can be applied.