Scabs in the donor area after suture removal

[gtz101]

I have my sutures removed yesterday. I can not describe how painful these were. It took 1hr and 15 minutes for the nurse to remove these stitches. The 4 knots removal were very painful as there were lots of scabs around these areas but it was just so painful. At times a few hair was pulled accidentally that were stuck in the scabs. I'm wondering whether it may have done any damage to the donor area tissue or stretched it. I didn't thought it was supposed to hurt. Ideally it would have been best done from my HT surgeon but as I am back in the UK (was only in Canada for 1 week), I wasn't going to go back to Canada just to remove stitches!

 

Now the donor area has lots of strips of scabs running across. Last night, sleeping was better but still feels a bit awkard. I think this could be because the scabs. Is it normal to have scab rows around the donor area?

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

If you still had a lot of scabs when you had your sutures removed than you probably did not wash the donor area as aggessively as you could have. You should wash it in a side to side/ ear to ear fashion. Most of my patients who return 7-10 days after the procedure have almost no scab remaining and the suture removal takes less than 5 minutes.

[gtz101]

I did wash these areas but probably not agressively. This was in order to aviod causing any damage/stretching the donor area. I wasn't aware if we were supposed to wash it agressively. In fact the nurse who removed the stitches said to me to aviod washing the donor area for few days. In terms of now getting rid of these scabs, is it just aloe vera that will help speed removal of these scabs or could we use something else?

[Dr. William Lindsey]

I agree with Dr. Charles. MOST men are a little afraid of doing enough cleaning to the donor and recipient areas. This comes from guys being guys first off, secondly, patients are afraid of messing up a lot of work and money that went into the case, and third one guy's idea of clean is not the same as another's.

 

Plus, in the donor area, its hard to see what you are doing, particularly without a short haircut.

 

We tell folks that other than vigorous exercise, there is very little that they can do to mess up the donor area, and that they ought to clean it daily..or twice a day particularly if they have a companion to help.

 

The recipient area is a bit dicier, and we want folks to be very ginger for 3 days, and then start cleaning a little more than they actually think they should after that.

 

But always ask your doc what they want you to do as far as cleaning goes.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA