Itchy incisions!

[AshleyKY 6]

I’m 10 days postop. My incisions are itching so bad! What did you do for itchy incisions??

[Matt Z 4,139]

Itching is caused by your body telling you it needs to get rid of something. You can wash them to remove any built up dead skin, but if you have some glue caps over the incisions just be careful not to remove them.

A cool compress can help

So can some anti-itch creams / sprays.

If you feel the urge, you can use an old tattoo trick, slap (lightly) the itch, enough to hopefully send the signal back to the brain that you've addressed the issue that it was sending you "scratch" requests for.

[Sara S. 1]

So glad someone else mentioned this...I'm 8 days post-op and my tummy is SUPER itchy! Also, I hate to admit this, but I've started peeling a lot of the purple surgical glue stuff that's on top of the incision (I can't help it! It's like when you're a little kid and you have dried glue on your fingers and have a blast peeling it off at your desk at school!) and I've tried my best to resist scratching, but I definitely have been to some degree.

I know this is worrisome because the more you fuss with cuts, the more likely you are to cause infection and other issues, but it also impacts scarring, right? I'm assuming I have worsened the likelihood of having noticeable marks now because I couldnt just leave them alone to heal.

[gully90 214]

On 06/14/2018 at 10:47, Sara S. said:

So glad someone else mentioned this...I'm 8 days post-op and my tummy is SUPER itchy! Also, I hate to admit this, but I've started peeling a lot of the purple surgical glue stuff that's on top of the incision (I can't help it! It's like when you're a little kid and you have dried glue on your fingers and have a blast peeling it off at your desk at school!) and I've tried my best to resist scratching, but I definitely have been to some degree.

I know this is worrisome because the more you fuss with cuts, the more likely you are to cause infection and other issues, but it also impacts scarring, right? I'm assuming I have worsened the likelihood of having noticeable marks now because I couldnt just leave them alone to heal.

I’m 9 days out and all of mine peeled off and I wasn’t trying to peel them. I think it’s all about your skin on how the marks will look but I don’t know

[AshleyKY 6]

Only a few of my steri-strips have fallen off. So, I can’t really do any rubbing except on top of the strips. I wash every night with the special soap they gave me to use before surgery.