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Weight loss surgery wound Infections
If you have a wound infection your doctor, or a nurse, will give you instructions about how to take care of the wound. Generally, the wound is packed with saltwater soaked gauze and this dressing is changed a couple of times a day. Antibiotics are prescribed, and typically, these are Keflex® or Augmentin® (unless you have an allergy). An infection usually comes from bacteria that live on your skin. It is rare that it will come from a dirty instrument in the operating room or some other source. This is why it is important to keep your wound clean.
If your wound has been opened to allow the pus to drain, it is still advisable to wash your wound out with soap and water—it won’t hurt the wound and is the best thing for it. Once the wound infection has passed, and the wound looks healthy the skin may be re-closed with suture, or the surgeon may wait until the wound closes itself. Sometimes these wound infections can take weeks to take care of, so be patient. This does not mean that you will need to be on antibiotics for all this time. If the surrounding skin doesn’t show red streaking, chances are the surgeon will take you off the antibiotics.
Packing a wound
Your surgeon will have you "pack" the wound with some saline soaked gauze. Please do not stuff this in the wound—the idea is for the wound edges to remain moist. If you stuff gauze into the wound, it will take longer for the wound to close. Over time, this wound will start "contracting" and closing itself, and after a few months, no one will notice a difference. But, if you stuff the wound with the gauze, instead of layer it, it will take the wound a lot longer to close. So, be gentle.
Some surgeons use other materials to soak the wound. Some use a weak bleach or iodine solution, acetic acid, or one of a number of other solutions. The important principles are to pack the wound lightly, change the dressing twice a day (unless otherwise instructed) and take a shower. Likewise, there are a number of other products that surgeons can use, such as the wound vac, various forms of gels, or even material from algae (Sorbsan®). These all come with special instructions, and probably will come with a home health nurse to help you manage all of this material. Fear not, if you eat well and consume adequate protein, your wound will close nicely, and look just fine.
Wound infections are common and happen about five percent of the time. These infections can be small and easy to manage, or your entire wound might be opened up and allowed to close on its own. If your wound is left to close on its own, a binder sometimes helps. The forces on most wounds are from side to side, tending to keep the wound open longer. Check with your surgeon—he or she may have other ideas.
Closure of a wound
Sometimes a surgeon will take you back to the operating room to close the wound. This only happens after the wound is very well healed and has a nice red bit of "granulation" tissue in it. Sometimes a surgeon will allow the wound to slowly close by itself—that your surgeon’s decision.
What suture did they use?
There are a lot of ways for a surgeon to close the skin, and a lot of tools. There are advantages and disadvantages to all of them. Skin staples are the least painful, and lead to a good cosmetic result, although a number of patients don’t like them too well. Most surgeons use a dissolving suture and then place steri-strip tapes over the wound. These steri-strips are a wound closure device—some of them are as strong as suture. Still other surgeons use Demabond®, which is superglue for the skin. There is no right or wrong way to close a wound, but there are a lot of opinions. One friend of mine said that in her part of the country, surgeons don’t use staples because patients think they are not cosmetically appropriate. Wherever you live, and however your wound is closed it probably will affect how the wound looks later on.
