Two weeks ago this evening, while I was driving home from work, kaylasmom, while walkig from our dining room table to our bedroom, had her leg give out under her. Down she went, on our hard tile floor, and injured her right hip (see here for the story of her injuring the left one). When I arrived home, I spent about an hour calming her down, and eventually persuaded her to allow me to take her to the ER. X-rays ensued. A fractured hip was diagnosed, and she was admitted to the hospital in anticipation of her second hip replacement in eight years.
The surgeon completed the surgery on Wednesday morning, closing the incision with staples. This Thursday at 10 AM she’s scheduled to show up in his office to have the incision checked for complications and, if all is in order, the staples removed.
She’s quite concerned that this process is going to hurt. A lot. Personally, I’m pretty sure that it’s NOT going to hurt to have the staples removed. But, never having had surgical staples, I don’t get to speak from experience when I try to reassure her.
So, has anybody here had staples used to close a long incision? How much discomfort is she likely to experience?
I’ve had this done. It barely hurts. The staples, unlike stitches, pinch in from the sides. So no part of the metal staple is actually in your body. Stitches can hurt when removed because the thread is getting dragged through your skin on the way out.
Instead, there’s just a brief pinch, because the stable removal tool tends to cause the staple to dig in slightly from the side, and it’s done. Per staple. And by a pinch, I mean an actual pinch, not the “pinch” of someone sticking an IV needle in you which hurts a ton and the nurse claiming it’ll only be a pinch is a big fat liar.
If you want to preview it, go grab some wire cutting snips from the garage and snip one of the staples. Give her the tool and let her do it really slowly. It won’t be bad at all. Don’t do this, of course, if the wound isn’t completely sealed - the dirt from the garage would be bad falling into an open wound.
Not much to it. I’m sure I tensed up every time I heard those clippers cut a staple, but barely felt anything after that. Getting stitches out never hurt either.
I get mine out tomorrow. Deck board broke under a ladder I was occupying a couple weeks ago. Dropped me 15 feet onto my outstretched right arm and blew up my elbow (open dislocation, radial head fracture, avulsed ligaments, Ortho described it as “destroyed”). Fortunately I sprained a knee 30 years ago so this was well within my pain tolerance. But The Missus was traumatized. Anyways, I have 24 gleaming staples irritating the hell out of my arm and I’m ready to take them out myself.
Had several staples in the top of my head - the removal (AND installation) was MUCH less pleasant that for any stitches. (Maybe they were less “gentle” with me since this was a martial arts injury. May have figured if I was stupid enough to allow someone to elbow me on the top of my head, they didn’t have to worry about it.)
I’ve had stitches at least 3x that I can remember. Each time, I removed them myself. Absolutely no issue, no pain. My wife has also removed her own stitches.
This time, they asked if I wanted stitches or staples. I didn’t care, and they suggested staples would leave less of a scar under my hair, so I went with it. Figured they would be using some fancy piece of medical equipment. Instead, they basically leaned on the medical version of a Swingline, while someone else pressed the edges together. Really had to lean into it. About 8 staples in, I asked, “Could you maybe give me a spray or a shot of something to dull the pain?” Their response was, “Oh, you wanted some painkiller? Well, we’re just about done!”
When they said the staples would be removed w/ a staple remover, again, I expected some hi-tech gadget. Instead, it was a version of the desk-top claws. Not the MOST painful thing I’ve ever encountered, but not what I would call pleasant. A couple of the staples were hard to pull out - like when you are pulling staples out of a thick document and one end gets stuck? The doctor/nurse would wiggle it back and forth while yanking, and the cut oozed a bit.
Next time, if given the choice, I’d go with stitches.
I had staples after a hip replacement - removing them was quite painful, not from the actual incision that was being held closed, but the pinching of the skin by the cheap NHS supplied tool being used to remove them.
I had a lot (I have just counted on a photo, 30!) of stables in my tender stomach skin when I had my operation for colon cancer. You see, first time they put my intestines together, they fell apart again. To make a better repair they cut me open all the way across (and removed almost half of the colon.
I looked as if I had gotten a zipper installed from one side to the other.
The removal didn’t hurt at all. I sat down, I even looked at the nurse picking the stables out. The only time it got a bit uncomfortable was in the right side of the scar where too much skin had been caught under the stables. When it suddenly opened, red and tender, it did hurt a bit. The scar was well healed even there, I think it was more the chock of feeling the opening of the pocket.
Following my knee replacement surgery last year, I had 34 staples holding the incision shut. I don’t remember much pain, if any, when they were removed. I’m still able to see their little dots on either side of the scar.
