self stitching your wound

[Native Nathan]

done it before when i badly gashed by leg in northern Scotland.

Did it hurt....H3ll yeah, like a B!tch
Would I do it again... No way, Hurt Way to much....
Do I regret Doing it... Definitely.. I got a nice scar on my leg though...........
Why did I do it...Because with all the adrenaline and pain running though my body my judgement was clouded and I thought that it was the macho (Not the right) thing to do.

 

[Pict]

I asked an MD friend about self-suture he said anything I could manage to do with a needle I could do better with tape and it would be far less painful and dangerous. That made sense to me.

I was out in a rural village once looking for a friend (Igor) who is the village medical tech. (about like a nurses aid, they have minimal training) He was at the clinic, a kid had run into a barbed wire fence and had a 5 cm gash from the bridge of his nose to up over his eyebrow. I got there just as they were starting to clean him up for stitching. I was expecting Igor to do railroad track type stitches but instead he proceeded to do a beautiful sub dermal plastic surgery close. He did an amazing job of it.

I asked him, "Igor, where in the world did you learn how to do that?"

"I saw it on a video of a medical documentary."

"You saw that on a video once and learned how to do it?"

"Oh no! I rewound that tape a hundred times."

This kid's choices were Igor or duct tape. He healed up great and only has a faint scar. Mac

 

[Poco]

I wouldn't recommend it.
Without proper sutures and cutting needles it is tough to do and you risk just doing even more damage and still not having a sealed wound at the end of it.
If you are faced with absolutely no other option then perhaps, but there are much better ways to fasten bits back together.

 

[Ballo1000]

I have some medical training for horses and have to agree before the vet gets there, use duck tape. It is perfect for most jobs. I have used it on my self more than once aswell, I shouldn't try diy. As for suturing tendons you would have to be mad.

 

[Nath]

I've sewn myself up 5 times over the years,Getting pretty Good at it.
would'nt advise it,unless it's an emergency

Owch! spose if its gotta be done...

 

[1 x bush mechanic]

Painfully i just poured my heart out in a reply and it got pomped somehow. Here goes again.. Right firstly i am not a doctor and this is not god speaking but while i was in the south african army i would help our ops medics out when they needed a hand bullet,knife,impact wounds, amputations caused by a.p mines and emergency appendectomy (on one local inhabitant) in the field. So i learnt monkey see monkey do. For a flesh wound (no blood squirting i mean really squirting) clean all wounds out as if your life depended on it removing all bits that shouldnt be there twigs,stones,sand cloth etc rinse agian. Then apply pressure directly to the wound (tampax are great) in a bullet wound or hole.put bandage on top of bandage (do not remove old one) until it stops turning red. (always treat for shock the no.1 killer) when bleeding stops you can (if there is not to much tissue missing) close wound. Here goes i'v heard of tying long hair together over a head wound to close it.putting a thorn through the wound and binding with thin twine in a figure 8to close wound,using large ants to bite a wound closed then snapping body off. Taking flesh off sisle cactis leaf leaving thorn attached to the fibres to use as needle and cotton. All sounds likes bollicks to me may cause more trauma and infection. So hold wound closed with tape or butterfly stitches, keep dry and don't move to much. The squirting leak the most dangerous, must stop bleeding by putting fingers into wound and pinching artery closed with hemostat (dont leave home without them) be carfull not to rip artery. This should only be done if you are far from help as can bleed to death fast or use tourniquet where possible. If wound in chest lung area and is sucking(puncherd lung bubbles from wound when breathing) put plastic (cling film is great) over the wound to stop lung cavity from fulling with blood and causing suffercation) can drain lung with condom but thats enough for now. Hope i help someone somewhere with this.

 

[crazydave]

the only time a suture is really necessary is when its in an area you cant immobilise like a knuckle as you need to minimise the amount of scar tissue which could otherwise impede the joint. I've taped up my own wounds and had them tear open a week later which meant I had to have the healed flesh and scar tissue cut away before it was sutured anyway.

if you lay bit of micropore over the cut and then put superglue over the top it will fix it. when the glue comes away from the skin then the wound is generally closed.

I used to have to do a lot of suturing as a medic with lots of hands from engines, tools and broken glass. hands do really need a proper stitch or if its the palm then I would have used staples to pull it tight. you do need to properly assess the wound and look for deeper damage like bone chips, nerves or tendons.

with the exception of penetration wounds where you need to open it up more in order to clean out detritus carried into the cavity its allways good to close the wound somehow after its had a good cleansing bleed out so it can heal healthily. the closer you can get the edges the better it will heal. even a safety pin can make a suture at a push but an improvised sharp cutting edged needle can be done using a fish hook. not the greatest ways but they do work.

yes I have sewn myself up, and taped and glued.

 

[John Fenna]

The most extensive self treatment I have done is when I stabbed myself in the palm of the left hand when I was dropping the point of a knife on a course stone...and the stone rolled...the knife was - naturally - razor sharp!
The blade penetrated far enough to jam and I unthinkingly jerked it out again...On examining the wound I could see all those interesting white bits but as I could still wiggle my fingers and the bloodflow was not excessive I simply closed my hand around a field dressing and tied it tight.After 3 days of being mitt handed I took the dressing off and the wound had closed nicely and I just put an elastoplast over it to remind me that it was tender and not to use the hand as agressively as normal for a while.
I have a neat 1/2" scar and no mobility problems - plus the informed opinion that reshaping blades when tired and in a hurry is a bad idea!

 

[trewornan]

there lies the problem.

the closest hospital of any consequence is 90 miles (in any direction) away from my playground.

I'd count that as trivial, I'm talking in terms of days - and no emergency services to help. If you can get to a hospital quicker than that you really don't need to be sewing your own skin together.

If you're considering it and it's not under the most extraordinary circumstances you probably don't understand the potential problems (or you're a professional medic yourself).

It isn't macho, it's stupid.

 

[sapper1]

I think there's too mch information in this thread that could lead to serious infetion and scarring.
First aid is just that first aid.Every medic of any type will tell you the first thing you need to do with any form of cut is stop the bleeding.This is done with bandages,feild dressings and pressure.Once you have done this ,the proffessionals take over,the people who are trained to repair broken bodies.My opinion is unless you are trained to do the job then don't do it.
How manyof us have had help from someone and later thought "I wish they'd just left me to it".The same applies to first aid,you can do some serious damage by thinking you can do it when really you can't.Best thing is to keep first aid simple and leave the rest to the medics.

 

[whitey3192]

i agree 100% with sapper one
definition of first aid is 'Emergency treatment administered to an injured or sick person before professional medical care is available'

you could end up getting sued if you give treatment that goes wrong or doing things that you are not trained to do or certified to do by a governing body.

the main aim of first aid is to Preserve life - the overriding aim of all medical care, including first aid, is to save lives

Prevent further harm - also sometimes called prevent the condition from worsening, this covers both external factors, such as moving a patient away from any cause of harm, and applying first aid techniques to prevent worsening of the condition, such as applying pressure to stop a bleed becoming dangerous.

Promote recovery - first aid also involves trying to start the recovery process from the illness or injury, and in some cases might involve completing a treatment, such as in the case of applying a plaster to a small wound

simply stopping bleeding and or pain and keeping someone warm and comfortable is what a non competent person should aim to do in any situation.

 

[gowersponger]

i was talking to 2 old druken prats who live down the bottom of my road the outher day and to my amazement one had blood down his face and a nasty cut above his eye hes mate he was with had hit him with a table lol and then stitched it up with fishing line haha and it wasnt thin coarse fishing line it was like 15lb sea angling line ,,mugs,,.

 

[ged]

... How many of us have had help from someone and later thought "I wish they'd just left me to it". ...

Eight years ago almost to the day I was moving a shed from my back garden in Bath to Derbyshire using a 7.5 tonne flat-bed truck with an arm. The shed only weighs about a tonne. I'd put it on the truck and was having a bit of trouble getting the truck out of the field next to the garden. When there's little weight on the back wheels those trucks are very bad on poor surfaces. A couple of guys walking past said "Hey, we're lorry drivers, we'll shift it for you easy as pie". Like a fool I let them have a go. They spent best part of half an hour getting it sunk down to the rear axle in the mud and then said "sorry we couldn't help" and left. It would have taken me half an hour at most if they'd just walked on by, but as it was it took me about half a day, using jacks, timbers, ropes and a chain block, to get it out of the hole they'd left it in.

The moral of the story is don't mess with things if you don't really know what you're doing, you'll probably just make them worse.

I've been on several first aid courses. Although you might need to take a knife to somebody's throat to allow him to breathe, as far as I can remember nobody on any of the courses that I've been on has ever suggested that stitching anything might be a good idea.

 

[Bothwell_Craig]

*with tongue firmly in cheek*

Stitches are soooooo old hat, skin staplers are the way forward..........

*tongue removed from cheek now*

Seriously folks, if you wish to prepare for armageddon day / zombie invasion, then by all means get a couple of pigs trotters and stitch away until your heart is content but leave the human stitching to the professionals. It's fraught with underlying (quite literally) danger.

The most important thing with wounds in the wilderness is make sure they are thouroghly irrigated to avoid infection and a couple of twist off saline solutions wont cut the mustard.

You want at least 500ml of sterile water forced through the wound. If you dont have an irrigation syringe then the next best thing is a 500ml plastic bottle filled with the sterile water and a hole in the cap created with a hot needle. Failing that a plastic food bag will suffice with a hole in the corner.

I do carry sutures and skin staplers but only on really remote stuff.

 

[oetzi]

Various branches of the homo genus seem to have survived for millions of years before the invention of the needle, let alone suturing. However did we manage that?

By the use of ants, perhaps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant
Scroll down to "Relationship with animals"

 

[Toddy]

Some of the Scots will no doubt remember being taught to stitch on a banana
It was a very good, practical, lesson.
Then we were shown how to apply steristrips effectively.

M

 

[Salix]

I had stitches applied in my elbow once without anasthetic.........that was enough to put any thoughts of ramboesqe diy medic to bed, I'm a big chap, and got a good pain threshold, but I was fighting back the tears an the natural urge to belt the doctor in the snozzer for forgetting the arm holes!
Recently I had an encounter with a widow maker (drivall) left me a bit shaken an stirred, but again I left it to the pro's to glue it up...nice job too
Mark

 

[BorderReiver]

As far I'm concerned you can sew or glue yourself to your heart's content; just don't do it to anyone else.

 

[bigbeewee]

TOP TIP, Just don't do it......

 

[brianP]

Do not stitch, unless you are on a video and want people to think you are "so macho"...wait til you see his self cautery...

Article on wound closure http://www.raems.com/stitchintime.htm