Medical folks: Keeping surgical wound clips covered?

10 days post surgery, 17 clips, just had to take dressing off after a sweaty turbo sesh. I’ve got one more dressing left until I go back to get the clips out next Friday.

Do I need to keep them covered/dressed? Std set of reasons is:

You may not always need to have a dressing on your surgical wound. The purpose of a dressing is to:

absorb any fluid leaking from your wound
provide the best conditions for healing
reduce your risk of infection
protect the area until your wound has healed
apply pressure if this is needed
prevent your stitches or clips from catching on clothing

– No more fluid leaking
– seems to be all healed up
– seems to be all healed up
– seems to be all healed up
– nope
– Happy to be careful – just wearing shirts, at home until the clips are out anyway.

What do we reckon? alright to take my chances?

personally I would just to protect the clips. However thats a long time to keep the clips in. usually out after 7-10 days but your surgeon will know better than I

Clips out after 10 days is a fairly standard thing but will depend on what has been clipped to what.

Keep it covered if that’s what you’ve been advised to do, but if it’s all healing nicely, no need to be daft about it.

You’ve had a Kim Kardashian arse transplant haven’t you?

They said 2 weeks. Soonest appt. I could get at the local surgery was 2 days after that.

Advice is scant on this! Just says keep dressing dry for 5-10 days

And yes crikey, new arse. In my shoulder.

Looks alot better already. Hows it feeling

I’m unable to offer medical advice, but I’d take those clips out if you were on my ward.

Phone your local District Nurses and ask them to pop round and get them out; you shouldn’t be waiting because the appt. system is crap.

Kim would have that on the front page of Vogue quicker than binners on a pie.

Ace, thanks Crikey. I’ll see if I can sort something sooner. Appreciate your non-advice!

And thanks Tracey, feeling better already, still a bit sore, but feels might more “right”. Definitely happy that it was the right thing to do.

staples not clips ( pedantic – who me? ) but basically I agree with Cricky

It’s only the clips holding the medicinal millipede captive – and you don’t want that **** on the loose, do you ?!

TJ, hopsital said clips, I’d have said staples, but didn’t want to disagree! And is weir getting pendantic, “better than me” 🙂

That’s better!

Cheers for the advice, glad I pushed to get them out earlier.

Quite amused to find out why I was struggling to pick out all of the mank from under the clipstaples (pronounced like Whitstable). It’s a freckle!

Clips??!! …was it a friday afternoon job?? 😉

DrP

😥 Are clips a bit of a bodge, DrP?

Edi: maybe? I bet they’re quicker, but:

http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1199
Conclusions: After orthopaedic surgery, there is a significantly higher risk of developing a wound infection when the wound is closed with staples rather than sutures. This risk is specifically greater in patients who undergo hip surgery. The use of staples for closing hip or knee surgery wounds after orthopaedic procedures cannot be recommended, though the evidence comes from studies with substantial methodological limitations. Though we advise orthopaedic surgeons to reconsider their use of staples for wound closure, definitive randomised trials are still needed to assess this research question.

Maybe there was a call for last rounds, and they had to get out of theatre quickly? Won’t someone think of the orthopods… 😉

DrP

(Really, when I was in hospitals as a junior doing surgery, and when doing minor surgery, skin closure with sutures was the preferred method. Clips were seen as, erm, ‘lazy’ by some!)