I am having my nipple reconstructed later this month from my own breast tissue. My concern is that I will be going on holiday 8 days after surgery on a cruise, so not near a hospital to get the stitches removed!. has anyone had dissolvable ones? The other option would be to remove them myself?
Hello Sue987
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June, moderator
I had this operation mid feb. The stitches were dissolvable ones and took ages to come out. So you should be fine. Be careful not to do anything strenuous on that side, swimming or tennis etc - or carry anything heavy as they can part company. They make you keep the dressings on for ages, but give you plenty of new ones to change them yourself, so maybe you could keep them on till you get back. Are you having Lipofill too, that was harder to recover from. PM if you need any more info.
Have fun and good luck with op
K M x
Hi, I had a nipple reconstruction done in 2012. My surgeon used dissolvable stitches. I didn’t have any significant issues in terms of pain or discomfort and was able to go back to work the following day. I had to have large padded dressings fitted over the nipples so as not to squash them whilst they were ‘settling down’. So apart from feeling a bit bulky as a result of the dressings, everything was fairly straight forward. Maybe make sure that you have some loose fitting tops? I really wouldn’t recommend trying to remove the stitches yourself- you don’t want to risk spoiling your surgeons hard work. If you’re concerned maybe it might be worth seeing if you could re-arranging the procedure to when you’re back from your cruise?