My incision site still seems to have all its stitches at the 3-week point after surgery. Is this normal? I was told these are dissolving stitches.
Seems like mine are supposed to dissolve by eight weeks. I didn't write it down, but that's what I recall.
Quote from: RexRG on February 04, 2024, 06:40:31 PMSeems like mine are supposed to dissolve by eight weeks. I didn't write it down, but that's what I recall.
Oh wow. Thanks. The internet is all over the place with this info. I guess this would explain why my stitches are still here.
Mine were also dissolvable but was still told to remove them at 7 weeks. I did it myself virtually. Oddly enough, Hakky said one of the stitches to leave because it was tied to all of the other stitches deeper within. He said tk just clip it at the skin level on that one and leave it and it would dissolve on its own in 3 months.
Short answer to your question is, depends on the doctor, the type of sutures used and their protocol. I'd ask your doctor and just follow their advice.
My external absorbable sutures required 3 to 4 weeks. They got infected and my surgeon quickly prescribed a very powerful (3-day) antibiotic.
My internal absorbable sutures dissolved at different rates. The resident that assisted my surgeon told me these suture take a long time. The smaller sutures dissolved within 2 months or so. The large, thick suture bundles required 1.5 years to dissolve. There was a medium internal suture bundle near my penis tip. This one required 2 years to dissolve by about 90% gone. The last little bit is going away very slowly.