6 months post apocalypse…
September 30, 2009
Well I suppose I’m slightly exaggerating, my Achilles rupture wasn’t exactly the end of the world, but it doesn’t seem like too long ago when I was crutching around feeling sorry for myself and thinking life would never be the same.
However, 6 months have seemingly dragged on and flew by at the same time. In just a few short hours it’ll be October, and the entire spring and summer seasons will seem like just a dream. I guess I’m just always amazed at how true the “watched pot never boils” analogy is; the first 6 weeks after my accident were terribly slow, but the following 6 months? Record speed. Sheesh.
Well enough rambling about my issues with time, this is a blog to talk about my achilles, not the calendar. For the most part, everything is still moving along pretty smoothly. Well, I thought so until today. Since I’ve been running and working out a lot more, the back of my running shoes have been kind of irritating the bottom of my 5″ scar. I didn’t think much of it really, I would just put more lotion or aloe on it and it would look and feel better. Well today after my shower I noticed a little piece of what looked to be thread peaking through my skin. Upon further examination, and a little tug (I know, probably not very smart) I found out it was indeed thread - attached to a blue thing. That’s about as far as I got since I immediately freaked out a little and stuck a band-aid over the area.
I called my trainer at school, but no answer. I’m hoping to hear from her tomorrow to get her take on it. I don’t think this is something my physical therapist can handle, and my surgeon is back at school 3 hours away. I assume I’ll have to find a doc from my PT’s orthopaedic institute up here to take a look.
Has anyone else discovered a suture that had been left behind? I’m not exactly positive that it is one for sure, but I can’t think of what else it may be… and I’m not about to go exploring anymore. I’m just curious to see how long it was after your surgery when you discovered it, and how it was taken out.
October 1st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Probably a stitch that has not dissolved.
Had two come to surface when I had my shoulder surgery.
One came out pretty easily, but the other had some resistance and went to see doctor and he cut it out…Did not seem to be a big deal to him.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:50 pm
It is actually a not-too-infrequent thing for some of the deeper sutures to eventually come to the surface. Most of the deeper skin sutures are absorbable, but they can really vary as to how long they take to absorb. I am an anesthesiologist, and I’ve had a patient who was “spitting” (nice, technical term) sutures several years later. Personally, I had some skin cancer taken off of my face, and all of my deeper sutures ended up surfacing and either being removed by me or my derm. My only concern for you would be the “blue thing”. There are some nonabsorbable sutures that are blue. Nonabsorbable sutures are intended to remain forever. If your surgeon used one of these, (s)he meant for it to be permanent and you shouldn’t tug on it. You can rather easily tell if it is one of these by trying to get a close look at it. If it is smooth, like a really thin plastic guitar string, rather than braided like thread, then it is one of those permanent ones. Any surgeon, orthopedic or otherwise, can tell you in a second which type of suture it is. If you do see someone other than your operative surgeon, take that surgeon’s info along in case the person you see has questions. Good luck.