So remember that gnarly knee surgery I had about seven weeks ago? This one?
They used "dissolving" internal stitches to close me up. I use quotes, merely because, well, that's NOT what they did.
Last week, I developed a mild bout of cellulitis - I'm prone to it, so I went to my surgeon and got some nice Keflex, my friend. I advised my scar had been doing well, but for one spot that just wouldn't heal more than one layer of skin...it would put a layer down, then put a second layer down and the top layer would peel off. No bandages, creams, lotions, neosporin, whatever would make it go away.
Well, a week later, the cellulitis was gone, but that area was still not healing and a bit swollen. I touched it. It erupted. I drained out most of the yuck, cleaned it, and packed with Neosporin, and followed that procedure. It looked better, still didn't heal up. Two day later, I looked, and there is a section of suture showing. I clean some tweezers, thinking it's a bad chunk and I can just pull it out...nope. It's attached. Both ends. I call the oncall doc, he says to keep it clean, call Monday. I call today, it's starting to get weird up and down my scar (not infection, but just....weird). I have an appointment tomorrow.
Most likely, they are going to have to go in and cut all of the suture out. I've abscessed about 2" or so along then length of my scar, so it will all have to be opened, cleaned, suture removed (because it's ALL still in there), and new external stitches put in. Luckily, at this moment, no sign of infection (no redness, pus, pain, fever, etc)
What the heck!? Why can't I have a normal body that dissolves it's stitches? Noooooo....I have to go for round two.
They used "dissolving" internal stitches to close me up. I use quotes, merely because, well, that's NOT what they did.
Last week, I developed a mild bout of cellulitis - I'm prone to it, so I went to my surgeon and got some nice Keflex, my friend. I advised my scar had been doing well, but for one spot that just wouldn't heal more than one layer of skin...it would put a layer down, then put a second layer down and the top layer would peel off. No bandages, creams, lotions, neosporin, whatever would make it go away.
Well, a week later, the cellulitis was gone, but that area was still not healing and a bit swollen. I touched it. It erupted. I drained out most of the yuck, cleaned it, and packed with Neosporin, and followed that procedure. It looked better, still didn't heal up. Two day later, I looked, and there is a section of suture showing. I clean some tweezers, thinking it's a bad chunk and I can just pull it out...nope. It's attached. Both ends. I call the oncall doc, he says to keep it clean, call Monday. I call today, it's starting to get weird up and down my scar (not infection, but just....weird). I have an appointment tomorrow.
Most likely, they are going to have to go in and cut all of the suture out. I've abscessed about 2" or so along then length of my scar, so it will all have to be opened, cleaned, suture removed (because it's ALL still in there), and new external stitches put in. Luckily, at this moment, no sign of infection (no redness, pus, pain, fever, etc)
What the heck!? Why can't I have a normal body that dissolves it's stitches? Noooooo....I have to go for round two.
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