suture left in?

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Specializes in wound care, sub-acute, community nursing.

what happens if we are removing sutures and one os very tough and may have not come all the way out? Should you justmonitor for s/s of infection? MD is aware, but what happens when a suture gets left behind with the knot cut off?? Never had this happen....

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It could be a souce of infection and will cause the hole to remain partially open. The top may scab over but the hole itself will not heal until the remaining suture is removed. Are they dissolvable sutures do you know?

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Specializes in wound care, sub-acute, community nursing.

non dissolvable..I wonder if I could use a tweezers fromthe kit and try to fish it out?

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We once had a pt in a correctional facility who had a suture migrate to the surface. The poor guy was frantic that we come immediately & remove it while it was still visible, because it kept going back under the skin & no one would believe him. Thankfully there was no infection.

I also once had a home health pt who had sutures migrate to the surface. At first I thought I was seeing things. I knew I hadn't seen any sutures previously.

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My experience is that they eventually work themselves out, usually without infection.

The body typically doesn't like foreign objects, the immune system will try to reject it but it might fester up a bit (not all goop is pus).

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