Just got five stitches yanked out today. That makes a total of 19 stitches in three separate incidents for me, nine, five and five. Share your stitch-getting stories.
The nine were from when I “broke my head.” I was around four years old, was jumping on a sofa, and fell over the back and whacked the back of my head on a cabinet. Both fives were for fingers: my left thumb on a bandsaw, and recently my right index finger on a kitchen knife.
Ouchies.
ETA: Not counting the super high-tech micro-sutures that the eye surgeon used on my eyeball incisions, since those were tiny and self-dissolving.
I never had any until I was 22 and cut my heel on the metal edge of a stair. Tetanus shot, novocaine shot and a couple of stitches. Worst thing about it was ruining my favorite pair of shoes.
Since then, both have been child-birth related, so I’ll leave it at that, except that there are certain times when Epsom salts are a a girl’s best friend.
When he was little my brother had to have stitches in his tongue. He was climbing to reach the cookie jar or something and slipped off the counter. Since we left that house when I was five, he couldn’t have been more than three. Enterprising little bugger, but not very acrobatic.
So far, my kids haven’t had to have any. (Excuse me a moment, I’m not sure if my desk is actually made of wood or not.) My daughter cut open her forhead once, but they used something like superglue on it instead of doing stitches, to reduce scarring.
I have a lovely row of stitches – well, staples, actually – from my knee replacement. Four inches of incision with staple holes all along it. Those were planned, however.
For actual stitches, I only got them once, when I was slugged in the eye many years ago and had to get some stitches since the skin popped open over my eye and, as such things are wont to do, bled like a stuck pig. Oh, and childbirth, but again, all I’ll say is that you’re right, cher3, Epsom salts are indeed a girl’s best friend.
My son, however, nearly made a career of waiting till the urgent care clinic closed on a Friday or Saturday evening and then splitting something open – usually his knee – requiring a trip to the main emergency room. We got to be experts at it; I’d staunch the bleeding, we’d all have dinner, and then bring something good to read. We always needed it.
None for me, so far! I did have one cut on my finger (from a glass that broke while I was washing it) about a year and a half ago that my husband insisted needed stitches - probably just one or two. So we wandered over to the ER (conveniently just across the park from us! And it was 10:30pm otherwise we would have gone to a clinic) and signed in and waited… and waited… and waited. About 4 hours later, we sort of clued in to the fact that not one person had been called through to see the doctor, including the guy with a massive head wound!
So we left.
We figured we’d just go to the clinic the next day, so I disinfected it as best I could (hubby is useless for these sorts of things - blood makes him woozy) and bandaged it up nice and tight for the night. For a million and one reasons, we never did go to the clinic, but we did go see a play my cousin was in, and one of my aunts, a psychiatric nurse, told me that if it wasn’t stitched up in the first 24 hours or so, there wasn’t any point.
So I kept cleaning the wound and bandaging it myself, and it began to close after a few days. It was a few weeks before I felt comfortable bending my finger, and it’s still a little tight across that joint, but there is barely any scar at all. The cut had been more of a slice, anyways, with just an open flap of skin that could be “closed” back up, rather than anything that had to be held together.
That is actually my worst injury, ever! knocks on wood
My husband on the other hand… scar tissue from head to toe!
Had gross dissolving stitches when my wisdom teeth were removed…nobody tells you that unless extreme diligence is applied, you end up basically eating the stitches. Yak. I see the benefits but let’s face it; nobody wants to chew something that’s been decaying in your mouth for a couple of weeks. Double yak.
I have a relatively large scar on my left calf where I should’ve gotten stitches, but didn’t, for reasons that have to do with my mother panicking. I was three, and my five-year-old brother was throwing pieces of a broken glass Coke bottle up in the air to “watch them smash.”
I picked up the biggest piece I could find, threw it as high as I could, and watched it come down and slice my calf open. I remember running for my mother and watching my sock turn redder and redder.
She was so shocked by her blood-covered child that a friend of hers is the one who bandaged me up; my mother couldn’t even really look at the wound. I guess a cooler head would’ve said “stitches!” but nobody did.
So it’s a very irregular jagged gash of a scar that I have now; even if I’d had stitches it would’ve scarred I’m sure–just more neatly–so I’m not too bothered by it.
But it does leave me in the odd position of reaching 29 years of age and never having had external stitches.
I’ve had stitches in my chin a few times. I’ve had three knee operations, with a combination of stitches (this time and last time) and staples the (first time). This last time my doctor missed a stitch when he removed the rest, so I removed the last one myself. My appendix burst a few years ago and they used surgical staples then. When I had myself surgically sterilized a couple years ago I got stitches on my apple bag. I’ve got a couple scars from times I should have had stitches but didn’t.
I haven’t ever had to get any because of an accident, but I have a most impressive scar that runs most of the length of my back from surgery when I was a kid. I also had both stitches and staples following breast reduction surgery ten years ago.
Nothing interesting or fun otherwise, but I bet as far as sheer number of stitches regardless of whether they were accidental or surgical I’m well up there among Dopers just from my back!
I had many, internally and ex, when my wrist was put back together after losing a sparring match with a window. “Nurse Ratchet” removed them, and I vowed to do any other stitch removal myself.
Had minor surgery on a finger to correct a badly healed dog-bite, I took those stitches out in a motel room after a few beers.
Got another finger sewed up 2 summers ago when I had a disagreement with a lopper - I managed to hold off on the beers until after I removed those!
In 1958, when I was 10 years old, I went riding bareback. I wasn’t a very good rider, and I had never ridden this horse before, but I was confident that a bareback ride would be OK, since I’d seen Annie Oakley do it on TV. The horse went into a panicky gallop for no obvious reason, then sunfished and threw me off. I landed headfirst on a jagged rock, and lost a lot of blood during the 30-mile drive to the nearest medical facility. I ended up with 55 stitches in my scalp, which made me the envy of all my friends. The kids at school called me “Frankenstein,” and I could win admiration by showing off my cool, scary scalp scars for several months.
About 20 in three’s, four’s, and five’s for various cuts. In addition, twelve in my right leg where they cut a thing out to biopsy when I was a kid; I have a kind of big scar because I accidently tore out the stitches. Eight more from in the back of my left hand from a fence-climbing accident, seven under my right eye where a pebble broke the skin (fortunately, it went under my eyeball), fifteen in my right pinkie from a stupid kitchen accident, and thirty-something more going down my right thumb into my palm from getting my hand caught between a truck and trailer at work. I’ve never been a really graceful person.
Fifty in my leg; fireworks accident. Pulling the drain hurt.
Seven under one eyebrow; header into a pile of cynder blocks. Pulling the drain hurt.
Three on top of head; wooden club.
Thirty right knee; surgery. Pulling the drain hurt.
Fifty in the stomach/abdomen region; surgery. Pulling the drains hurt.
I might have had more. They hurt at the time, but they aren’t so memorable now. Some you just wait a week or two, snip the strings and play rip-cord shots. (do a light sip before you snip all the visible threads and then you can have one after each thread you yank completely out all in one pull.)
But there’s no scotch when you go back to get the drains pulled; its best you clench your teeth & look away.
I’ve had eight: three in my left knee from this one time when I skidded on some ice on a playground and drove a woodchip into it, and five on the back of my head when I cracked my head on the kitchen counter.
13 (give or take) at the base of my left index finger, right about where the tip of my thumb touches it in a high-five gesture…
I was about 6 months into culinary school, and just starting the toughest class in the rotation. Our group was on sauce duty, so we needed to get the stock rolling right away. Our recipe included an Onion Brulee (Step 1, cut onion in half, step 2, burn it). No one had a cutting board set up yet, so I just grabbed the nearest knife, held the onion in my left hand, and sliced through it, and about a third of the way through my finger.
The Chef Instructor walked in the kitchen moments later. He freaked out more then I did. I didn’t really look into the cut, but he later said he saw “things you should not be able to see” amongst all the blood. He had another student drive me to the ER, where they washed me up, stitched me up, then drugged me up. They told me I did not cut the tendon, but I did graze it. Not bad enough for surgery, but bad enough for permanent damage.
The stitches came out after a few weeks, but it was months before I had regained the strength to lift a sauté pan with that hand, and years before I had my full strength back. Mnemosyne mentioned she still has tightness across her injured joint, and I can sympathize! I recall having tingling sensations when using a tight grip with my left hand as late as 5 years after the injury. Its about 7 years now, and I still remember that awkward feeling whenever I think about it.
It left a parabola shaped scar, because i sliced in at an angle. I also have a small triangular scar on the tip of my thumb, where I filleted myself with a bread knife, cutting some stale rock-hard bread for croutons. No stitches needed, but I could have used some antibiotics about a week later when it got all infected.
68 stitches in a leg gash
8 stitches on my fingertip when part of it was lopped off in an accident
5 more stitches in my arm for a skin graft over the fingertip.
6 stitches on my chin after a knife slash.
1 stitch in my eye after cataract surgery.
Gave my brother a few when swinging him around a polished wood floor holding on to a blanket ended up with his head meeting the corner of the brick fireplace.
He got me back a few years later when his game of running around the yard trying to balance the push broom on it’s end finished with it arcing in to my skull.
Having the doctor inject my head with anesthetic is still pretty far up there on my ‘weird sensations’ list.
Try reaching 39 and not having any external stitches or even any casts. Only stitches I ever had were after having my tonsils out as an adult, and they were theoretically dissolving stitches. Once they started to let go, I went after them with some long forceps as they became much more irritating once they started to loosen up.
The only stitches I’ve ever had were childbirth related, and I don’t even want to think about how many there were for that.
At about twelve I slipped in gravel on my bike and did some major scraping and scratching on a knee and an elbow. There was one deep place that the doctor said could have used a stitch, but there was too much dirt in it. That scar was gray for years.
For my thyroid surgery I had really cool clips, so the scar stood out from the skin for a while. But it’s gone now. I was worried about having it right there on the front of my neck, but you can’t even see it. Scared the kids, though.
Hmmmm. 2 stitches in my scalp, when I banged my head on a shower handle while we were at the beach; I was 11 or so. Mom and Dad had a hard time finding a place to take me. I don’t recall the stitch removal being a big deal.
4ish stitches on the underside of one toe (where the toe joins the foot) when I stepped on a plastic figurine at age 16ish. Removed a week or so later by the pediatrician; that was pretty painful IIRC.
4ish stitches on the tip of one finger, when I slipped while cutting open a package with a sharp kitchen knife. This was when I was newly-arrived in Charlotte NC, and had no effing CLUE where a hospital was. We looked up a minor-emergency clinic in the phone book and drove there… and it didn’t exist yet. I vaguely recalled seeing another one in another part of town so we drove to where I thought it was, and sure enough there it was. No big deal, again.
Childbirth, forceps required. 'Nuff said? (except when Dweezil was 3 days old, my MIL made me laugh about something, and one stitch popped. Ow.).
Childbirth, c-section, most dissolving but 4 staples which were removed at 4 days. No big deal having removed.
My gum was basically sewn-together after a tooth extraction. I could feel the suture on both sides. After a week or so, I guess one bit of it dissolved and the rest sort of slid out (gag). That got spat out in a hurry.
60 something - 8 years old, had birthmark removed under arm.
11ish - 12 years old, gashed arm falling on barbed wire fence.
8 - 14 years old, sliced tendon at knee on tin can lid while carrying out the trash.
7 - 14 years old, sliced hand w/ knife.
4 - 17 years old, kept splitting chin playing football.
6 - 19 years old, split forehead on mud swab while roughnecking on drilling rig.
3, 3, 5 - 20 years old, hand went through window.
7 - 30 years old, cut near eye from snow ski. Removed stitches w/ nail clippers.
