Stitch Yourself Shut- Surgery at Home.

Intro: Stitch Yourself Shut- Surgery at Home.

Perform surgery at home. This I'ble will show you how to stitch up a wound. It will provide guidelines to follow, as to assist you in performing your own surgery at home.

This I'ble does not substitute for a qualified opinion, yet provides general purpose information to assist those not fortunate enough to afford general practitioner or hospital assistance.

So, are you injured? Do you have a cut that just won't heal? Don't have time to go the hospital?

Read on, as I will solve all your injury needs.

STEP 1: What You Will Need

What you will need is as follows.


~ Sewing needle, the smaller the better.

~ Cotton appprox 30cm.

~ Dis-infectant.

~ Bandage.

~ Probes/cleaning tools.




Once you have these lets begin...

STEP 2: Assessing the Wound

Firstly we need to assess whether or not we are able to complete the task at hand.
By "complete" I mean as to finish in manner that is acceptable and to serve the purpose at hand.
That is to close a wound to aid in the healing process.

Nothing more nothing less.

Think bush survival or as a last means approach.

Alright so there are a few areas we need to assess.

1. Blood flow- If you are encountering excessive blood flow, which restricts your view of the site abort this technique apply a compression bandage and seek medical advice immediately.
If "Blood flow" is not excessive and the site may be viewed successfully then continue.

2. Dimensions- This becomes a major factor in regards to closing a wound. If the wound is of an excessive size or an exorbitant amount of tissue has been removed, you must seek medical advise immediately.

3. Foreign Materials- Sewing your sub-dermal skin layer shut while foreign materials are inside is a big NO NO. If you close a piece of foreign material in the sub-dermal layer of skin (Under your layers of skin) you will be visiting hospital in the near future whether you like it or not. The human body is able to expel foreign material via abscesses and pustules in the uppermost layers of your skin eg. Zits. If you enclose foreign material under your skin then you run the risk of having it become septic almost immediately. This can leed to gang-grenge and possible amputation of affected area. Heed my warning, you do not want to travel down this path. Clean and dis-infect the wound completely before continuing.

As you may view in the second photo, I removed a small particle of foreign material prior to stitching.

So your bleeding?

Lets go!!

STEP 3: Sterilize Your Utensils

The most important step after sterilizing the site is to sterile the utensils.

They must but completely sterile prior to use or you are defeating the purpose of cleansing, stitching and bandaging he wound.

I would advise using a chemist bought sterilizing solution or a mix of hydrogen peroxide..

STEP 4: Cleaning

We will begin by soaking the effected area completely in a dis-infectant solution. Once the effected area is completely submerged in solution, some agitation maybe needed to exfoliate materials from the wound.

Make sure as to remove as much foreign material as possible.

If you are not able to remove the foreign material I suggest you stop here, wrap the wound in a sterile bandage and seek medical advise.

Once the effected area is cleansed free from foreign material, dry the area and move onto the next step.

STEP 5: Sewing the Wound

Now we engage in the stitching of the wound.

Start with the closet edge of the wound to you face and sew away from yourself.

You will notice that the immediate edge of the wound would have become numb and will be able to be pierced with little to no discomfort.

Make sure you keep as close to the edge as possible without it hemoraging and releasing the stitch.


We will start to the left of the wound with a initial holding stitch.

Insert the needle downwards through to the sub-dermal layer of the skin. At this point you will need to level off the needle and venture through the wound and to the adjacent wall of the wound.
Once across the other side of the wound return the needle to the skins surface through the sub-dermal layers of skin.

We need the needle to go deep enough as to not release the skin through a tear.



Once we have reached the right hand side of the wound we need to make a diagonal path across the wound again to the next point. The simple diagram will illustrate.

STEP 6: Finishing Off

Once you have zig zagged your way to the top of your wound make sure to tie off with a decent knot.

There you have it, one neatly repaired wound.

This method may take a lil' practice yet comes in very handy when needed.

It may also take you a while, to come to terms with being able to "Stitch Yourself Shut".
You need to remember, it is only skin and they are just going to sew it shut at the hospital anyway.

I hope you have found this informative or interesting atleast.


WoW!! I can type much better, now that my finger is sewn shut.

Comments

[Smalm4444]

I had a finger wound on my left index finger from a box cutter. The ER put super glue on it and that fell off within a day. I got stitches but they tore out. A week later I am still dealing with it bleeding whenever it gets washed. I finally today took a needle, a lighter, and some polyester thread (polyester is derived from recycled plastics), and lit the needle and sewed it up. I had washed it before so it was safe. I got to stabbing the part of my skin which starts to bleed. I sewed it up in one peice of thread. I read elsewhere on the internet that" any thread would do". These words written by a doctor who published an article. I am happy with the looks of my finger. I had to rinse it and wash it because the thread got blood on it from doing the stitches. I did a saline soak as well and covered it with a bandaid. It is flushing itsself out by producing a clearish liquid which is good because it is the bodies way of flushing out inpurities.

[Sbaxter123]

Has your finger fallen off yet?

[JacquelineR27]

You forgot to tell us what kind of string your using...was it sewing string, fishing line, dental floss!?

[Sbaxter123]

~ Cotton appprox 30cm.

[JanetF56]

Was it floss

[nathanaelchua0511]

It might also be good to get some betadine
Solution and give the area a good wipe down, personally a medical grade stapler may work better

[Justin Capron]

how would I do this because my finger got slammed in a car door and I dont know what to do a part of mhy finger nail is cut off but and cant take it off.

[raj chandra]

nice.. you are doing a great job by creating awareness. i just want to say if you want to do this kind of stunts just use the good quality of instruments and stay safe. being a surgeon i always prefer instruments from world precision instruments and suggest you to check their website in case you need any kind of instruments to do this type of job.

[DavidD477]

You should have used glue. Much less invasive for a small cut like that.

[JanetF56]

Maybe he had no glue!

[RynB2]

crazy glue saved the day for me more then once. on much largher cuts

[akdebb]

How long can you wait before sewing the wound up

[akdebb]

How long can you wait before sewing the wound up

[SaxyOmega90125]

Use povidone iodine to sterilize the cut and isopropyl alcohol to sterilize tools. Neither is very good at doing the other's job.

Hydrogen peroxide is not useful in this context - the closest thing to a medical application it has is to remove fungus (ie black mold) from sensitive materials. Much like washing your hands in warm water, using peroxide to clean wounds stems from a myth perpetuated decades if not over a century ago.

[jhoenig]

if in an area with no burnable alcohols, is it possible to boil or burn the object with some source of fire to sterilize it?

[ansonmht]

Threads have to sterile too. But if its a wound that can be easily closed by simple suture, its not urgent or threatening. simply disinfect, wrap, stabilise and go to the nearest health station will do!!

[Summergirl10]

Hi-- can u please help? Saw you just posted this 6 months ago & am HOPING you can Help! I just stitched up an arm gash (one of 7). I'm scared I went too deep while stitching! Any idea how to reach the "poster?" Or maybe You know? CANNOT go to ER! TY in Advance-- BTW-- saw the "meat" (ICK!) inside the gash I sewed up but how to know if I want to deeply with the needle/thread?

[DavidD477]

The needle should go through all three layers of skin and sit just above the fat layer. Stitching 'too deep' is only an issue if you jam the needle in somewhere you shouldn't, in which case you'll know about it. The only real problem with stitching through the fat layer and into muscle is that the stitches may be less effective at pulling the skin together. This is one of the reason professional suture needles are curved; you want to 'hook' the dermal layer on one side and then on the other then pull it together with your suture (thread), fishing line and dental floss are two good DIY alternatives to medical suture.

If you can't see the fat layer on a cut (unless it's to a hand or somewhere where there is extremely little body fat) you're most likely best off using glue.

[JoshuaW133]

I have a rat with a tumor sticking out of her skin. If I could put her under long enough to cut it out I would try taking care of it my self and stich it up. I just can't spend lots of vet money on a pet that may only have 8 more mounths to live any way.

[DavidD477]

A rat can't give consent so you run the risk of being prosecuted for animal cruelty and as well wishing as you may be, if it makes it to the papers the public will not see you in a good light.
However ketamine would be the best anaesthetic agent. About 50mg intramuscular (injected into the thigh using a high gauge needle (27g or higher considering the size of an average rat) should keep a rat out for about twenty minutes.
As for stitches, they're likely going to be more trouble than they're worth, try and keep the cut as straight as possible and glue it (use cyanoacrylate glue AKA super glue, do not let cyanoacrylate come into contact with cotton).