Stitches removed

My four year old had an avulsion to her thumb with four stitches.  Today, she had them removed and upon returning home I noticed part of one of the stitches was still in her thumb.  I was able to pull it out with a tweezers, but there is another one I can see but I am unable to grab it with the tweezers.  Is this a big deal, will it get infected??  Any ideas??

[Bridget A. Hewitt, RN]

Hi,

The peds surgery expert forum generally only deals with pediatric or fetal surgery.  I would contact your child's pediatrician in regards to the suture.  It needs to be removed and it could get infected.  I would not advise you to attempt to do this yourself since you could end up infecting the wound with dirty tweezers.  The suture removal kits that are used to remove the sutures are sterile to help prevent infection.  Good luck

Bridget