Dressings

[Mummyofone]

How long do I keep dressings on after a lap and when can I have a bath. One nurse said four day one said a week I am worried about infection.

[Tina32]

If you've only had key hole I reckon a week is about right. If you remove your dressing and its still open you can always go to your GP and get them to put new dressing on. I had to do this and was able to do this as an emergency day appointment at my GP surgery.

I would wait minimum of 4-5 days (personally a week) before bathing. You really do want to keep the area dry so the wound heals quicker.

[Impatient]

Just lap holes then you can change dressings and use antiseptic wipes and creams on the wounds till the have healed which is about a week to 10 days or so, once healed over then you can have a bath.

Before then you can use waterproof plasters and have a shower if you need to, just be sure to make sure that you have new dressings to put on afterwards that allow the wounds to breath. I certainly do not recommend sitting there with the same dressings on and not keeping an eye on the wounds. It's only the surface that needs healing for baths. the inside with glue plugs will take weeks and weeks to heal and for the plugs to disappear and dissolvable stitches to shrink away.

You can do this yourself - no need to visit the clinic nurse to change your dressings.

They are not big wounds - just deep ones.

[Hidden]

And make sure you keep an eye on the belly button one. With this surgery for some reason, my belly button kept trying to get infected. So, I recommend a careful drying out after every bath/shower using a Q-tip.

[Impatient in reply to Hidden]

Excellent point Aardvark, yep it's always the belly button that seems to be the one that gets infected when we hear about it. Mine was the belly button wound from my lap years ago.

[Mummyofone]

Thank you everyone for replys my belly button area is a little itchy and warm not sure if that's healing or infection so going to ring nurse. I feel after lap I was told different things by each nurse and I was so tired didn't take it in Thank u