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Warning about medical CA glue for closure

Since it’s basically healed, I figured I’d do a quick write up.

About a month ago I implanted a Haworth sensing magnet in my right ring finger. Everything went well, except it took close to an hour to do, so by the time I was closing up the incision, I was starting to get impatient. I ended up getting glue in the cut without noticing.
About a week later, I peeled the glue up and the cut was almost completely open. I took my time and tried again with the glue. Again, a week passed, and it was still open.
It got to the point where every couple days I would check on it and it wasn’t closing. I ended up giving up on the glue, and after a few days of plain triple antibac and a bandaid, it started to close on its own.
After over a month, the skin is just about healed over, much longer than I was expecting.

To anyone considering using CA glue to close up a cut, make sure the magnet is far enough away that it doesn’t apply pressure on the wound from the inside, and be prepared to go through a long recovery time. I’m pretty lucky that I managed to avoid infection.

Imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/EPy5voS

Comments

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  1. Yeah, wounds healing is best when it's via primary intention. You really want the incision to bind together pretty much immediately. If you keep the tissue apart then you end up healing by secondary intention.. tissue at the wound base grows outward. You're far more likely to form scar material etc.
    A single interrupted suture is so easy. I don't know why people are so driven to use other methods. Glue is about the equivalent strength as a size 6 suture. It's considered too weak for fingers and hands in medicine. People have success with it.. but it's less than optimal.

  2. For me it was mainly lack of experience. It sounds pretty dumb now, but I was thinking that doing it one handed with a metal needle would be nearly impossible, and it would make infection a greater risk. If I do it again, I’m definitely using sutures.

  3. It's not dumb. A lot of people use glue without problem. As I said, it's not best in my opinion but hey.. if it works then do whatever.

  4. Passing the needle isn't an issue.. it's tying the knot. It can be a real pain in the ass.

Displaying all 4 comments