Is it possible to get new stitches "redone" ?

St1mpMeister

I recently had an operation on my elbow to remove a metal plate that had been placed there 10 years ago when I broke the elbow.

When I had the stitches done for the original operation 10 years they did a neat job closing it up (where they closed up both sides of the wound and used about 20 staples to keep it all together).

I got the plate removed 3-4 weeks ago in Beaumont (on the public health service) and when they closed up the wound they used a pretty small amount of thread rather than staples, plus I noticed it was leaking a lot of blood. I think if staples had been used it wouldn't have happened as it's such a mobile area so you would need something stronger to hold it together.

Anyway the issue is that when they joined up the wound they "overlapped" skin rather than meeting each side as with the original operation. This means I have a 5mm "lip" at the bottom of my elbow which looks pretty bad but more importantly I will feel it whenever leaning on it, and it may get caught on if pulling on a wetsuit etc., and the overlapping flap edge seems to have a lot of exposed nerve endings (these might die off later though) and even looks like some fascia is visible!

Even the nurse who attended my dressings made a note of mentioning the odd "lip" of skin at the elbow edge.

So my question is, can you ask that a wound is re-opened and restitched together neater, or am I stuck with the 5mm lip for life?

Aye Bosun

Can't give medical advise and all that but personally if it was me I'd just be happy I got in and out of surgery / hospital without an infection. Opening that surgery site up again is running a huge risk of infection IMHO. You only had surgery 3-4 weeks ago, these things take time to heal, swelling to go down, fluid to drain etc.

If I was you, I wouldn't run that risk!

St1mpMeister

Aye I guess I wait and see... I was actually asking as a general point as well, as in is it possible to redo a "bad" stitch or would they only do it if it was an emergency (i.e. infected etc) ?

i.e. do you basically just have to accept whatever the doctor does?

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St1mpMeister

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Here's hoping, but good to know that going back and asking them to "fix" the join isn't an option. Would hate to discover later on that I could have gone back before it healed up completely.

Once it's healed up I'll start moisturising it and pressing it gently to break down the scar so that might improve the thing. Also should try to lean on it gently as often as possible to lower any bump in the tissue.

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St1mpMeister

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Interesting. Would private clinics be more amenable to client requests like this?

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St1mpMeister

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Never knew that thanks.

I always assumed the quality standards would be identical for both rather than just "good enough" on the public health service, and that the main difference is the longer waiting time.

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Wesser

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Of course.

You get what you pay for. The public system wants you healed, they dont really care how it looks (its an elbow, not a face!). The surgeon is not going to want to waste another appointment on a non essential procedure, the public system is massively under resourced and waiting lists are huge. If its healed - thats good enough for them.

You want it pretty, you pay.[/quote]

That has definitely not been my experience of public services and I.am shocked to read that I my opinion is that you are mistaken.

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St1mpMeister

If it's true that going Private ensures "smaller" scars (or more time put into getting them looking better) this should be on every health insurer's marketing leaflet!

As far as I was aware, the only benefits of having health insurance were..

- You get a private room (although I had a room with only one other person in it when I went public)
- You get seen to faster

If they also had:

- Surgeons will spend more time stitching you up

I'd sign up straight away!... thankfully this is just my elbow but lesson learned now... if I get a more prominent cut I'll pay to go private instead.


It probably explains why my original stitches were done so well as the surgery was covered by my health insurance whilst in Canada.

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