It can be. It is not only that, and this is one place where a reassuring folk belief and the medical facts don’t quite line up.
Itching is part of ordinary healing. In the stage where a scar forms and the wound becomes stronger, you may notice that the area itches as healing continues. After the scab falls off, the area may look stretched, red and shiny. So itching has a place in the normal sequence, and it comes late in it.
The difficulty is that itching can also describe something else entirely. With venous ulcers, blood pools in the veins of the lower leg. Fluid and blood cells leak out into the skin and other tissues. This can cause itchy, thin skin and lead to skin changes called stasis dermatitis. That is an early sign of venous insufficiency. Itching and tingling are among the early signs, along with leg swelling, heaviness and cramping, and dark red, purple, brown, hardened skin.
Early sign and late stage of healing are opposite conclusions, and the sensation alone does not tell them apart.
What separates them is context rather than the itch itself: where it is, what the skin around it looks like, and whether a wound is closing or a leg is changing. Those are observations, and they are the kind an exam is for.
The practical reading: itching during the closing stage of a wound is a normal part of healing and is not in itself a cause for alarm. But treating any itch as proof of healing reads more into it than the facts support, especially on a lower leg.