Rejecting internal stitches

[kcknee]

 I thought the recovery from my last surgery was going great. I have had a lot of heat beneath the incision, but the incision itself seemed to be well healed. I had a follow-up at my surgeon's office yesterday. His PA looked at the incision first and after she spoke with him in the hallway, he came rushing in and announced that I am starting to reject my internal stitches and that my body was starting to push them out. I've had 7 other surgeries on this leg in the past few years and haven't had this complication yet but still wasn't that concerned. The surgeon was very concerned though and kept stressing to me that I was to call immediately if it became red, swollen or extremely sore. I do have small hard bumps on the incision scar but no redness or leaking. He said he could dig them out then or I could wait until they came out on their own. He said the incision may partially reopen and leak. I hate needles so decided to wait.

I searched for "rejecting internal stitches" and "spitting stitches" here, but most people post when complications have become major or resulted in an infection.

Has anyone here rejected the internal stitches and had no major problems because of it?

Kristin

[allyd]

I did have something similar with an incision from a non-knee related surgery. I had a laparoscopic surgery, and my navel incision basically rejected the internal sutures used to close the incision. Like your doctor said, started a few weeks after surgery, it became irritated, red and partially re-opened and started to leak - but never infected (or at least seriously). Went on for about a month. It didn’t clear-up/heal until I fished the sutures out myself as they started to push out. But once I got that irritation out of there, it closed up and healed within a week. Just keep a close eye on it.

[kcknee]

Thanks Ally. I am hoping that this stays as just an annoying kind of gross complication. When the surgeon said he could dig in to the incision and try to pull the stitches out, he said he probably wouldn't be able to pull the whole lengths out anyway. Did you have many short sutures come out over the month or just a few longer sutures? I've never given much thought to how internal stitches were done.

It stinks watching this closed incision that I thought was healed get bumpier. Right now I see four distinct points forming and possibly a fifth just starting up. There appears to be whitish looped thread starting to push out of two points. So far it has not reopened and is dry. The incision feels slightly irritated, but not painful. It's a pinching, itchy type of irritation. I guess it would be worse if I didn't realize what was happening until the incision reopened.

Kristin

[emergRN]

Hi Kristin,

That happened to me after my first ACLr.  I had absorbable sutures in the tibial incision.  It was red, and then I had a little area on the top and bottom of the incision that would not heal.  I had a doc friend fish out the first part.  It did break off, but it was enough for that part of the incision to heal.  Months later I had to get the bottom one rooted out!  The hole healed very quickly once it was removed.
 
The knot was still there.  My body had not broken it down at all, and it was trying to work itself out.  It felt like a really coarse hair sticking out of my incision!  I have heard of this happening to quite a few people!  Just watch for signs of infection!

W

[TXGoalie31]

Hi there. Wondering if this is what's happening with mine.
If you look closely, there is a stitch poking out at the top of the first pic.