After an intense surgery lasting several hours, wound care might not be the first thing on your doctor’s mind. However, even the most successful surgery can go awry if the wound is not properly stitched when it’s time to close it up.
Believe it or not, stitching up the wound is an exact science that needs to be done carefully. It’s not a procedure that should be done quickly. There are many ways in which a sutured wound can come undone in the weeks following surgery. When this happens, infection can occur, causing serious health complications and even death.
There’s no reason why you should put up with a sloppy suture. This is often negligence on the doctor’s part and is often considered medical malpractice. If you suffered serious injuries due to an improper suture, seek legal help to understand your rights and possibly file a claim.
What Causes Sloppy Sutures?
When a suture comes undone, this is called wound dehiscence. This occurs when the wound opens up along the suture and is the most common complication of a wound.
Ideally, the sutures will stay in place until new tissue forms and helps the wound to heal. When wound dehiscence occurs, the edges of the suture open up instead of healing closed.
Sloppy sutures may be caused by the following:
- Excessive wound tension;
- Foreign objects or infection in the wound;
- Incorrect knot or technique;
- Sutures placed too close to wound edge;
- Knots are too loose;
- Incorrect materials used; and/or
- Blood clot forming.
What Complications Can Occur?
If your suture is coming apart, you may notice symptoms such as broken sutures, opening of the wound, pain, swelling, pus, bleeding, frothy draining and fever. Those who are overweight or suffer from diabetes may experience bleeding from the arteries.
Infection is one of the most common effects of wound dehiscence. If you have an infection, you may notice severe pain, reddening of the skin, abscesses, odor and fever. You may also notice excessive pus or other fluids coming from the sutured area.
It’s important to seek immediate medical help if you think you might have an infection. If the infection enters the bloodstream, it causes blood poisoning. This poisoning can travel all throughout your body and cause a complication called sepsis. Sepsis causes inflammation all over the body. This keeps oxygen from reaching the body’s organs, leading to failure. If the patient also has low blood pressure, he or she can go into septic shock, which is almost always fatal. It is estimated that more than 1 million people in the United States contract serious cases of sepsis every year, and as many as half of them die.
Get Legal Help for Your Medical Malpractice Case
Doctors are supposed to make you feel better, not worse. An improper suture can cause a host of serious medical issues. If your doctor’s negligence caused your wound to become infected and cause serious complications, you need legal help.
The Miami personal injury attorneys at the law offices of Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein, LLP understand that we depend on doctors to properly care for us. When a doctor breaches that duty and acts in a negligent manner, it can affect our bodies. Contact us to discuss your medical malpractice claim. Request a free consultation by contacting our law offices today at (305) 371-2692.