It's been a while since my last post.
I've been seeing more patients lately wanting their buried sutures removed, so this post is for them.
Reversing a Buried-Suture Procedure — Removing the Sutures
After a buried-suture procedure, patients can find themselves unhappy with the result for any number of reasons.
Two reasons for reversal stand out.
1. A persistent pulling sensation and discomfort after the procedure.
2. The patient already had a faint natural crease before surgery and, in retrospect, prefers the original look.
Removing the sutures undoes the crease in most cases.
Very rarely, the crease holds even after removal.
Strictly speaking, this is suture removal — releasing the crease is not the procedure itself.
If there's a pulling sensation, the sooner we remove the sutures, the better. Once the underlying adhesions have time to set, even removal may leave the symptom in place.
We extract through a tiny pinhole — no incision — to keep tissue trauma to a minimum. The technique has been refined through years of practice.
We photograph the extracted sutures after the procedure to leave no room for confusion about whether they were removed.
Removal can be done at the clinic that placed the sutures, but without specific experience, it's genuinely difficult.