Are you serious???--dissolvable stitches??

Man, I've been posting about this upper abdominal pain for a few days & now it looks like i have to call the Dr again tomorrow. I was checking out my incision tonight & found "something" sticking out of it. It was hidden uder a scab that came off tonight. It looks like cotton but I'm not sure. I'm hoping to God that it's just one of the inner dissolvale stitches but I'm scared it's a guaze pad or something left behind. It is close to where I've been having pain. Don't you think I'd be sick or have a fever if it were a guaze pad left in me? Anyone have any knowledge on dissolvable stitches?

Yep..your body is most likely "spitting" it out.  Not a terrible thing, happens rather often especially with the ones that are closer to the skins surface.  The doc will most likely just trim it down.  Good luck!!

yeah, that happened to me too except I don't have pain. One of my incisions became irritated after healing really nicely and now part of a stitch has come to the surface. I'm calling the Dr. monday morning and I'm guessing he'll trim it down so the skin can heal over it.

up to a year after I had my gallbladder out I was still getting little irritated spots on my largest incision.... I would scratch it unthinking and lo-and-behold a little string would be protruding. I'd just pull it and it would be stitches comeing out. For some reason my body doesn't dissolve those things right. I think if you had a gauze pad the pain would be intense, as would the symptoms of infection.

I have been fighting pain but like i mentioned, the dr said it sounded like a pulled muscle. Were your strings white? It looks like a cotton-y material or something. No fever, redness or swelling though so those are good things!

I had those "spitting stitches" up to 3 months after my lower body lift. The pain was intense, after pulling the little stitch, amazing, the pain went away.... My body was rejecting those"dissolvable stitches" also, don't know why, but the doc advised to put warm wash cloths on the areas to help bring them to the surface and that helped a lot... I found one that was almost 3 inches long... It hurt really bad before I found it, after taking it out, I was so much better....

Glad you wrote this.  I just had a lbl (3 1/2 weeks ago) and I have a few of these that have some to the surface.  Man they are irritating...... But...my fear is that like a lose thread on a button, if I pull t, something will fall of - haha.

I had, literally, hundreds of internal dissolving stitches with my BR. Two years later I still get one that spits itself out - however they're generally partially dissolved and look pretty disgusting lol. I wi**** was just the strings.

It is not unusual at all for these stitches to work their way out sometimes over several months.  The do look like a bit of string pocking out.  A sponge on the other hand, would not be near the surface of the skin.  Sponges are used in the true inside of an incision and if one were to be left behind (very rare) it would lie beneath 4 layers of stitches in more superficial structures when they closed the incision.

it is probably one of the stitches.  I really don't think they left anything in there like a gauze pad. Relax, stop looking at the incisions and you will be ok. The pain you have posted about is very common in the first month post op.