Third day home; time to remove some bandages. Eep.

Had my surgery on Wednesday; today I'm allowed to remove my bandages. From the patient handbook:
 

Q. When can I take my bandages off?

A. Leave your bandages on for 3 days. It is okay to shower with the bandages on. Under the bandages, there are steri-strips. These will fall off on their own. If they start to snag on clothing, trim off the loose ends.

 

Just took a shower (feels good to be less stinky) and I'm thinking it's time for the bandages to come off. For some reason I'm sort of  reluctant to do so. Nervous, I guess? Really not sure why. I think I'm afraid I'll somehow tear off the steri-strips too. 
 

Anybody have any tips on removing bandages? (Of all the things I'd psych myself out over, this one hadn't even occurred to me.)

Don't worry, you won't pull off the steristrips.  Those things are stuck like glue for a while.  I finally got impatient and pulled mine off at 2 1/2 weeks because they were still hanging on.

I do understand being nervous about removing the bandages.  My little incisions weren't gross at all, though.  In fact, they never had bandages over them, just the strips holding them closed.  If you have wet bandages, I'd get them off asap.

Now, the bandage over the drain was a whole different story.  I don't know if you have one, but the first time I pulled that off and looked at it, I got lightheaded.  I just wasn't quite ready to see that, but even that after a day or two of changing the dressing wasn't a big deal anymore.

You can do it!

THANK YOU!
 

This is exactly what I needed to hear. Off they come. 

I waited till my one week follow up as I was not told to take them off myself. The doc said "let's peel off your stickies" so I pulled up my shirt and he just ripped all 6 of them off. No big deal. He left the bandage on the drain till the surgeon came in then the surgeon pulled that big pad off, clipped the four stitches holding the drain in and pulled it out. Talk about a huge EEEP! Youza! My steri strips hung around a couple of weeks but when they were curling up I peeled them off too. Just keep all clean. My tummy looks like a train wreck but no pain so this is a good thing.