Surgery site/incision questions

[khalloc]

DD had surgery to remove a cyst 2 weeks ago today. All went well. It was on the side of her ribs, the top rib, sort of where your arm lays down on your side, but not in her arm pit.

The incision site looks fine. Its not red, not hot to touch. But the area itself feels bumpy and hard now. Is this pretty normal? She goes back to the doctor next Wednesday. I was going to call today and ask about it, but not sure exactly what to say. DH did call his sister who is a nurse and she said it sounded pretty normal, that they cut her skin open and went in with a scalpel to take this cyst out and that it will take time for the puffiness to go down. But it doesnt seem puffy really, just hard and lumpy.

[brittone2]

DD had surgery to remove a cyst 2 weeks ago today. All went well. It was on the side of her ribs, the top rib, sort of where your arm lays down on your side, but not in her arm pit.

The incision site looks fine. Its not red, not hot to touch. But the area itself feels bumpy and hard now. Is this pretty normal? She goes back to the doctor next Wednesday. I was going to call today and ask about it, but not sure exactly what to say. DH did call his sister who is a nurse and she said it sounded pretty normal, that they cut her skin open and went in with a scalpel to take this cyst out and that it will take time for the puffiness to go down. But it doesnt seem puffy really, just hard and lumpy.

Get the OK first, but you might want to look into scar massage or ask your doc, surgeon (if you have a followup scheduled), or the family member who is a nurse to teach you how to do it once you get the OK and it is adequately healed (and anything else ruled out if you are concerned).

[KathyN115]

When you have surgery to remove a cyst, it leaves empty "space" in the area where the cyst was. The body does not like this empty space, and tends to fill the area with fluid. This can feel like a hard bump in the same area where the original cyst was, and is totally normal. Her body will eventually reabsorb the fluid. HTH!

[khalloc]

When you have surgery to remove a cyst, it leaves empty "space" in the area where the cyst was. The body does not like this empty space, and tends to fill the area with fluid. This can feel like a hard bump in the same area where the original cyst was, and is totally normal. Her body will eventually reabsorb the fluid. HTH!

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

Your response makes me feel alot better. The incision site looks fine and feels fine to her but it looks a little bumpy to me and feels hard.

[khalloc]

Get the OK first, but you might want to look into scar massage or ask your doc, surgeon (if you have a followup scheduled), or the family member who is a nurse to teach you how to do it once you get the OK and it is adequately healed (and anything else ruled out if you are concerned).

This scar massage thing makes sense. I will ask the doc about it when we go in next week.

[khalloc]

I called the doctor's office (at the hospital). She was nice but not that helpful. Its just the lady who does his scheduling, so I imagine she is not a nurse. She just said if its not red or oozing or hot to touch, then its OK. And that the doctor would look at it all next week when we come in and that some scar tissue is normal.

Ok....I feel better about it though (mostly from the replies here!)

Thank you!

[Green_Tea]

I was going to say that it sounds like scar tissue - I remember my incision from my C sections feeling kind of "hard."

[daisysmom]

It sounds early for scar tissue. We had surgery to remove a birthmark from my DD's face on Feb. 28. It was closed with derma bond and not stitches.

Our scar care, dictated by our plastic surgeon, was like this:
- do nothing at all for the first 3 days
- after that, wash it gently with a cotton ball but not a washcloth until the derma bond came off, which they predicted to be in 2 weeks
- she said it could take 3 full weeks for the swelling to come down and the bruising to go away, and it did. Our scar is about 1 cm, and the bruising and swelling was 4 inches or so (on the cheek, so draining can't go but so far).
- we went back after 2 weeks and the derma bond hadn't come off, so the surgeon said to apply gobs of neosporin to make the dermabond come off, which we did.

Once it came off (maybe 3 days after that, so about 3 weeks after surgery), the incision was not red at all and was completely closed. For 3 months, this is what we are supposed to do:
- apply Scar Guard on it every night
- massage it with either a good mousterizer (I looked up here and got Cereve) or a good sunscreen (I looked up here) every morning. The massaging gets the cream in well and, importantly, makes sure that scar tissue or keloids don't build up.

I just emailed the surgeon today to ask if we could discontinue with the scar guard and she said yes, but to keep massaging it through the summer b/c of the possibility of scar tissue. Since ours is on the face, appearance might be more of an issue than one on the ribs.

Hope this helps. I know how you feel... I stared at that scar nonstop for a few months :)

[khalloc]

It sounds early for scar tissue. We had surgery to remove a birthmark from my DD's face on Feb. 28. It was closed with derma bond and not stitches.

Our scar care, dictated by our plastic surgeon, was like this:
- do nothing at all for the first 3 days
- after that, wash it gently with a cotton ball but not a washcloth until the derma bond came off, which they predicted to be in 2 weeks
- she said it could take 3 full weeks for the swelling to come down and the bruising to go away, and it did. Our scar is about 1 cm, and the bruising and swelling was 4 inches or so (on the cheek, so draining can't go but so far).
- we went back after 2 weeks and the derma bond hadn't come off, so the surgeon said to apply gobs of neosporin to make the dermabond come off, which we did.

Once it came off (maybe 3 days after that, so about 3 weeks after surgery), the incision was not red at all and was completely closed. For 3 months, this is what we are supposed to do:
- apply Scar Guard on it every night
- massage it with either a good mousterizer (I looked up here and got Cereve) or a good sunscreen (I looked up here) every morning. The massaging gets the cream in well and, importantly, makes sure that scar tissue or keloids don't build up.

I just emailed the surgeon today to ask if we could discontinue with the scar guard and she said yes, but to keep massaging it through the summer b/c of the possibility of scar tissue. Since ours is on the face, appearance might be more of an issue than one on the ribs.

Hope this helps. I know how you feel... I stared at that scar nonstop for a few months :)

Thanks! Its hard not to worry! My DD's dermabond came off yesterday completely. Its 2 weeks exactly since surgery. We see the doctor again a week from today. I will ask about scar guard and massaging the area. Her incision is sort of to the right of her right nipple, but more under the arm. Anyways, a sensitive enough area that I would like for it to look like there is no scar there as she gets older.