infected stitches? allergic reaction to dissolvable plates and screws?

[rebeccaroo]

Hello all,
Sawyer had surgery in August, 12 weeks ago. I have not posted because I started back to work the day he came home from the hospital, but overall, the surgery went well. He stayed in the NICU longer than we anticipated, 4 days, due to fever and blood loss issues. He had to have 2 transfusions, and he had a lot of problems with IVs and sometimes it would take an hour for several different nurses to get a line in. The whole experience seems surreal to me now, it was very stressful and painful to watch. I took pictures to post here, and I haven't gotten around to it yet but my favorite one is of him laying in bed, swollen and bruised, with a big smile on his face...Some little guys hang on to their joy no matter what.

There have been many times when I have wanted to get on this site and chat or post about how to deal with people staring, or my other children's friends suggesting that he be Frankenstein for Halloween b/c of the scar, but it always seems like it's 1:00 in the morning, and I still haven't done laundry, graded papers and done lessons, cleaned house or paid bills, etc., but now I really am hoping to get some advice from anyone who can offer it!

He seemed to heal well and bounce back quickly, just like everyone here said he would. However, 3 weeks ago our dr discontinued helmet therapy because he was developing sores along the incision site. Since then, some have cleared up and new spots have appeared, some as large as a quarter. There are hard knots underneath them. I spoke with the drs office today and we are going in on Monday. They said that in rare cases, patients can have an allergic reaction to the dissolvable stitches, and that this was what was probably happening. I can't even really remember what she said best case scenario was, because I started to get vertigo when she said worst case scenario would be having to have another surgery to remove all the stitches and infection. Has anyone ever heard of this?

Sorry to be such a downer. :scared

[Lisa]

Rebecca, I am so sorry you are having to deal with people being so rude to you and your son. If they only knew half of what parents go thru in this journey, it would change them in a second.
But to your question, does the sores look like pimples? Does it look like you could squeeze them and infection would come out? My Bradley got infected stitches with two of his surgeries, the first one his dr. popped it and squeezed it to get all the infection out, and then I had to keep doing this at home for about two weeks. He was put on an antibiotic and we used antibiotic cream as well. Eventually the stitch worked itself out and then it was over.
I hated squeezing it and doing this, but the alternative was going thru another surgery if it got real bad.

[Janet]

Fiona had a reaction to the stitches and the cream we were using....all we did was use vasoline on the suture line.

[rebeccaroo]

Hi,
Thanks for replying. The sores don't really look like pimples. They are sunken, rather than protruding. They start out red and then scab over, and sometimes the scab seems green. I can put him down for a nap, and when he wakes up, he will have one the size of a pea that was not there before. He has 6 places right now, and 2 of them are bigger than a quarter. My camera is broken but I'll see if I can get a pic from my cell to upload here.

Thanks again!

[Lisa]

That doesn't sound like infected stitches. I would get him into his surgeon as soon as possible. I am not sure what that may be.

[Avery's Mom]

Hi,
Thanks for replying. The sores don't really look like pimples. They are sunken, rather than protruding. They start out red and then scab over, and sometimes the scab seems green. I can put him down for a nap, and when he wakes up, he will have one the size of a pea that was not there before. He has 6 places right now, and 2 of them are bigger than a quarter. My camera is broken but I'll see if I can get a pic from my cell to upload here.

Thanks again!

Avery had two similar patches and we just took off the scabs, cleaned the pus out and put neosporin on them for several days and they went away. WIll be interested to see what the Doc says.

[AJ's Mommy]

Oh No. That is horrible that you are having to go thru this too! Please keep us posted. I wil be thinking of you and I hope it's just something that can be fixed at home:)

~Shelby
AJ's Mommy

[donnamilliezac]

im not sure if it sounds the exact same but zac had some infected stitches and some pretty bad scabbing which became infected we were firmly instructed by our cranio nurse that we had to remove the scabs (uugghhh) and get some antibiotic cream on, i has shivers even thinking about it but we soaked the scabs in vaseline all day and the just washed off with a flannel in the bath got the cream on and it cleared up within a few days - not a nice job but it did work

[Lara]

Ben had crazy pussed scabs with his first surgery and we went to urgent care and it turned out to be staph infection. They took swabs and sent them to be tested, and we found out that day. He was on antibiotics for six weeks and what eventually cleared it up was antibiotic ointment prescribed from our pediatrician, not the neurosurgeon. His didn't get as large as that, but they did seem to always be changing and swelling.
Wishing you the best-

[JillysMama]

My daughter had some pussy sites on her head as well. Because she has her helmet on all the time the doctor prescribed an oral antibiotic instead of doing any ointments or vaseline. A week later her incisions look much better. But she didn't have anything as big as what you're describing so you should definitely get it checked out. You should also watch for a fever, just in case, while you wait for your appt.

Sorry you're having to deal with insensitive people on top of all of this. The general public can be pretty clueless about cranio and the natural thing people will do is stare. I was pretty self-concious at first with the helmet cause people would stare at us. It took a few weeks and now I don't even notice it. I think I just got so used to seeing her head in the helmet that I forgot it was there. One day someone was kinda staring while we were out shopping and I thought, "Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe or something?" I totally forgot that my little cutie pie was drawing attention to us with her helmet.

Anyway, I hope things start getting better for you soon! Keep us posted on what the doc says about his incisions.