Hey I am just curious. I had my AVM brain surgery at Mass General Hospital in Boston and they sewed me up the old fashioned way (no staples!). My incision is from the top of the back of my head to my neck (2 inches below my hair line). Its a really long incision and ive had some pain and scary headaches but no itching at all. Other people have talked on this site about having to deal with horrible itching. I have also noticed that a lot of people talk about how awful painful having the staples taken out is. (the stitches being taken out was not bad at all). so I am curious:
1. did you have staples or stitches?
2. and did you have itching or not?
3. and how painful was taking out the staples/stiches?
I have no idea how docs decide to do staples vs stitches and I asked my occupational therapist this and he said, "the docs probably do what is easier for them rather than think about what it the best for the patient". I thought it was interesting that he had this point of view after working with neurology patients so much. So I am curious what y'all think!
I had both. 21-23 staple along the side of my head and up over my ear and a bunch of stitches on the top of my head. Yes they all itched like mad. I would say the staples were about a 7 and stitches about the same. The pulling of the stitches creeped me out, but the sound of the staples being bent in the middle was the loudest sounds I have ever heard! Not sure why some itch and some don’t. Have all the scabby nasty junk come off yet? I can still feel a little bit of scabbing over my ear. I think it is still there because I wear glasses and so it is always covered.
Hi Larisa.
I had staples, and no itching from the staples, however perhaps from the tape. Removal of the staples was a little intrusive. When they were taking out the staples, some were fine, others would make my eyes water. I had 42 staples. I think some of the pain was psychological too perhaps because, I knew that after I had them removed, I was on my way home, with a 3 week old baby, and a 2 and a half year old; and the drive was 6 hours! The way I look at staples vs stitches…staples are a yank, and a stitch is a snip and a tug. In total, I’ve had close to 90 stitches/staples in my life.
I had staples. My scar goes from the middle of my head (almost like a center part) and curves around to my ear. The staples did not hurt at all. When they took them out, it hurt a tiny bit cause a few times some of the hair that was growing back got pulled. I have had no itching or pain on the scar at all. Now you cannot see the scar. My hair has grown around it. I can’t even find the scar if I wanted to cause it healed so well.
Much like Jamie, I had both stitches and staples. The surgeon did a pretty fancy job. The stitches were mostly internal and could only be seen in a few spots on my scalp. Then, he used a little over 20 staples on the outside to reinforce the stitches and help hold the skin together a bit tighter. The stitches were the disolving type and if any fell outside of my scalp, I never saw them. The staples were removed a couple weeks after my surgery and I could barely feel it. That being said, a large portion of my scalp was almost completely numb for at least the following year. As annoying as having a numb scalp was, it was probably better than dealing with pain and most of the sensation is back now.
I had staples, but they were the most uncomfortable to sleep in and didn’t hurt at all when they plucked them out (but it was 3 weeks post-op). I only had about 17 staples. Yes, they itched but nothing horrible, but that could’ve been due to the numbness in my scalp!! The doctor said to put Neosporin on it and that helped, but the itching wasn’t that bad to begin with. The itching was most annoying with the little stubs of hair poking it, like when I put my head on a pillow!!
Two months post-craniotomy, I am now wondering if my hair will grow back!! My scar is a question mark starting behind my left ear and ending about 2 inches below what would be my ‘hair line’. The hair BELOW the scar has all fallen out and is just smooth bare skin. The hair ABOVE the scar is growing back just fine, but the scalp is numb still.
I know it hasn’t been that long since my surgery, but can anyone who had a craniotomy tell me if the hair BELOW the incision will grow back?? And how soon? Good thing hat wearing weather is coming soon…