Every morning I check the incision and chest tube sites. The chest tube sites look great - dry, tight, scabby and a good color (ie, not red). The incision is 95% healed, except for a 3/4" section at the bottom of the incision that has been a little slower to heal - it's been a little moist and scabby, whereas the rest of the incision is pretty much a residual scar by now. I've been treating this area daily with peroxide and/or iodine (depending on which bottle is closer) and occasionally covering with gauze, more to protect my clothes than the wound.
Seriously, if you're squeamish, stop reading here.
This morning (or overnight), the scab came loose prematurely and was quite wet. Attached to it, as I discovered when attempting to cleanly clip off the loose dead scab tissue, was a floppy protruding section of subcutaneous suture about 1.5 inches long. It's plastic thread, similar in texture to the gimmick that keeps your Thanksgiving turkey trussed until you get it from the store to your kitchen counter. So I clipped that too.
Now I'm left with a little bit of an opening in the skin where there shouldn't be one. Fortunately over the past 3 weeks the skin layers had healed themselves a good deal and the opening wasn't too bad (ie, I don't think it needs stitches). So, plenty of peroxide on the opening, and a new covering. It's not too red and not too painful, so I don't think it's infected, and I intend to keep it that way. I'll check it regularly and call my doc if it gets worse. Of course, it now being the weekend, if I truly need it stitched it means a non-emergency ER trip.
(Post-entry update: it looks great the next morning, reclosed on its own, clearly no need for stitches or anything interesting.)
Take care,
Michael
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A little late to the party for this, but.... Other way to go would be steri-strips, available at most pharmacies. They are breathable, stay on through showers and really help pull skin edges together. The step up from that is a butterfly bandage closing, but those aren't as good on the more delicate abdominal skin.
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