Itchy red skin around incisions

Hey all you May babies - congrats! I had my Lap RNY last week - wed, May 13, and my tummy started itching a few ( 2 or 3) days ago  - not on my incisions at all, but the rest ot my tummy. Now, it's looking red and rashy like. The weird part is that I can see white outlines around my steri strips and incisions, and the rash seems to be around my strips and coverings when I was more swollen, before my incisions went down. My best guess is that it's some type of topical anti-biotic or cleanser that they put on me post op after they sewed me up and I'm having a little reaction. I'll call my doc tomorrow AM, but I was just wondering if anyone was having the same or similar issues? 

Thanks!

I have not yet had my surgery, but I get a rash from bandaids it is usually worse than what I was trying to cover.  It could be from the steri strips.  Good idea to call your Dr.  best of luck and hope it gets better soon.

The glue my doc used to stick down the strips itched me like crazy. It was red and I actually scratched some spots till it bled and made a scab. Now all the strips are off an I have an outline of where they were. My mom reminded me I am allergic to the glue and the strips ( I have previous surgery where they used the same stuff).

If your incisions are itchy that means they are healing...but I would ask about the rash.

I too have had itch and rash in the areas BETWEEN my surgery sites.  I think it is residual from somehting that they used on my skin, or it could just be the healing process. I used some vitamin e ointment and was just careful to not get it near my port sites.  It helped with the itching, but I still have it on and off.

Thanks for all of your answers - they all make sense - I too think it was something that they swabbed on my belly after my surgery because it is almost in stripes on my belly. I did call the doc, and they said that it was most liely the bandages they had on me (either during surgery or riht after) that were over my steri-strips but that were removed before I woke up in recovery.   Either way, my doc said to take 25mg od Benadril every 8 hours, and it has really helped wiht the itching. The redness is there, but much less so and it hasn't spread, thank goodness.

I had the red rash and it turned out that I was allergic to the pain meds.  After taking the pain meds for almost a week, it had built up enough in my system that body finally recognized it.  It turns out that I was allergic to codine.  That kinda sucked because the codine was helping me sleep.

I haven't had the surgery yet but Are you allergic to latex? I get itchy with bandaids on too. Even socks that had latex in them itch. Does the glue they use have latex in it??

I had the same thing and use hydrocortisone cream and it cleared up in about a week.  I was sensitive to the steristrip adhesive....