Question:
sutures or staples which is better

I am trying to prepare for surgery and My surgeon uses staples on his open RNY patients, but after reading some profiles and talking to people, it seems with staples, some have more open draining, gapping, infections and so on. When I had my galbladder out 7 years ago the surgeon did it open and I have a scar from under my breast bone to 3" below my belly button about 18" ong or so, and he used sutures laced up like a shoe, and I had no infection, and I didnt have a drainage tube either. Would it be wrong for me to request using sutures instead of staples? Personaly I think staples are probably faster to do. And I read that it is good to have an epidural along with anastiesa, so the body is asleep, as well as the brain so the body doesnt have such a hard time recovering, anyone else use both and do better? sorry so long, and thanks in advance    — wizz46 (posted on January 9, 2003)

January 9, 2003
Hi Rosemary (my mom's name, too!)...I think it's okay to ask the surgeon for your preference, but you might not get it. My surgeon only did staples externally. That part was truly okay...just tiny little dots of scars where the staples were. My scar itself keloided, which was not the fault of having had staples. It's just my body doing it's "over-healing", instead of healing normally. My scar was 7" long (open RNY), and now it's healed down to about 6.5". My surgeon was an expert Lap surgeon, but Kaiser insurance at that time only allowed open surgery for RNY. So he told me the scar would be somewhat smallish, and for that at least I'm grateful. Also, I just had general anesthesia so I can't comment on having the epidural as well. Hope you get some good answers. Hugs, Joy
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