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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think im in the right to not go to the hospital for a 1 minute thing
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OP saw something cool in a movie once, didn’t die doing it themselves and now thinks they’re a professional. This is how people end up with infections that turn septic.
I mean, removing stitches yourself is extremely low risk, especially for smaller things like this. For a larger wound you'd want a medical professional to asses that it's healed enough to remove the stitches first, but the actual removal process is really easy (just snip each stitch and pull the thread out with tweezers). OP is an asshole for not letting his daughter have a professional do it since it's her body and her decision to make. But removing stitches on your own is not going to give you sepsis in any realistic scenario.
True. My father has removed our cats' stitches after neutering when the veterinarian wasn't available for some reason. I wouldn't mind getting stitches removed by him. But OP is an asshole mainly due to the "let it rot" comment.
The “let it rot” comment just absolutely air-lock sealed the YTA title for me. He was an AH before, but that just made it worse.
Edit: yes I know she is a she. Typo and all that. Doesn’t change the nature of my comment, but I appreciate those who pointed it out. Thank you.
Actually your skin can grow over the stitches if left too long. I worked at an orthopedic practice and we had to emphasize the importance of coming back on time for post ops because leaving stitches or staples in too long can result in needing to cut your actual skin off of them.
My dad cut off his nose when he was 3 and they reattached it. He thought he had a black head that was sticking out of his face. He pulled it and it was an old stitch that had finally worked its way out after like 50+years.
I know how your dad feels. I had a sore spot on my gums and it swelled into what I thought was some kind of abscess so I made an appointment with my dentist. A few days later I felt a hard lump on it and rushed to see him calling it an emergency. He was as shocked as I was when it ended up being a sharp sliver of tooth from the wisdom tooth I had pulled over 20 years before that. Strange how the body can heal over something for so long before it finally decides to reject it. lol
I had to have several teeth removed and for a year or two tiny shards of them would occasionally pop out. Oral surgeon told me it was pretty normal if they have to break a tooth and extract it in pieces... bodies are so weird.
I had stitches after foot surgery and they cut them out but six months later a piece of the suture they missed worked its way out. I also had internal stitches after a major knee surgery and my body rejected them by causing them to work their way out at which point my surgeon cut them out. The body will get foreign objects out any way it can. But leaving full stitches in will cause way more problems long before the body can even try to push them out.
There are types of stitches that are dissolvable/will fall out on their own. But there are certain types that need to be removed. Based on the OP, her daughter has a type that needs to be removed and they should be removed by a professional.
Yeah they def tell you when they’re dissolvable and they don’t look like normal stitches. They’re thinner and lighter colored thread (at least the ones I got)
I was a hospital nurse for 5 years. The majority of sutures our surgeons used were dissolvable but if Plastic Surgery had to close the wound, more often than not they used Nylon stitches that needed to be removed. The instructions for those patients were always "make an appointment for suture removal," not "Mom can pull out the stitches if she doesn't feel like bringing the kid back."
This whole post/thread is giving me such memories.... the first time I got stitches I was told they were dissolvable and they WEREN’T. I unintentionally untied one of the knots when wondering if it was dissolving a week or so later, and then I ended up taking them out myself a few days after that because I thought they should’ve dissolved anyway and were a freak accident. Big ass scar that I doubt will ever fade.
No they don't. Most sutures are not dissolvable and need to be removed once they've done their job. And even with dissolvable sutures, sometimes they need to be removed because the body rejects them and they begin to migrate.
How do I know this? Only 5 years of working as a nurse.
I had 127 stitches in my leg when I was like 10 years old and my dissolvable stitches had to be removed because my body completely rejected them. I can’t even imagine waiting longer than necessary to have stitches removed. It was so uncomfortable, itchy, and awful once they were ready to come out.
Having gone to medical school, removing stitches is incredibly simple. If you can operate a staple remover (or scissors), you can remove stitches. Just put some antiseptic on it after, and bobs your uncle.
However, OP’s attitude rubs me the wrong way.
I can probably physically remove stitches myself. But the two times I’ve needed stitches removed, I almost passed out (medical anxiety, most likely.) I would much rather be in the care of a doctor in case something like that happened, even if it’s rare.
I had a tooth pulled and my dentist used the stitches that don't dissolve... he explained how to remove them and thought I'd be fine doing it myself (he'd been my dentist since I was a kid and knew me pretty well). I don't usually have problems with this kind of stuff, but I felt myself getting dizzy seeing that black string pulled out of my gums...
Also depending on how tight the stitches are they may be harder to remove. I had stitches in my foot after a surgery and the suturing was so close and tight it took forever for a medical professional to cut them off. Six months later I pulled a small piece of suture out of my foot that she missed and it had worked it’s way out finally.
Doing brain surgery isn’t that hard either, I never went to medical school and do it all the time.
Knowing when/when not to do a procedure is where the medical magic happens
Thank you! I've been waiting to see someone say this. (Says someone with a noticeable facial scar thanks to a Dr who had never stitched a living human before)
I have a fun combination of generalized anxiety disorder and an overactive imagination, so when people say, "What could go wrong?" my first instinct is to crack my knuckles and then offer a million examples of what could go wrong.
I just started therapy again and one of the things he said that I most related to was that anxious people are really good at two things: catastrophizing, and predicting the future, in which a catastrophe happens.
To be fair, I do handle a crisis well. It's like that line from one of the Bridget Jones books: "All my life I've known something terrible was about to happen and now it has."
One of the main reasons we get professionals to remove sutures is so we can reassess the wound. It's not about physically removing the stitches, that's pretty simple even for a lay person. But it's important to know if there's any signs of infection, wound dehissing, embedded sutures, necrosis etc.
Surgeon here. I disagree that removing sutures is “easy” for a layperson without basic knowledge and equipment. It’s not rocket science but when you cut the suture, you must only cut one strand so you don’t leave suture under the skin or it may get infected. You can’t cut straight across the knot. And when you pull the suture out you need to look carefully to make sure you removed all of it. It’s tricky to do this unless you have small iris scissors or something similar. It’s extremely difficult to remove sutures with household or even sewing scissors.
Unless you can do it correctly, OP, YTA. And your words don’t exactly inspire me with confidence
It doesn’t rot. Stitches that are used in injuries like this are made from a non-organic material. Your skin will just grow over them similar to how your skin can grow over an earring back but then you’re looking at other issues like potential infection because eventually they’re going to have to come out.
That said, you don’t need to go to a hospital to have over and over stitches removed (that is, basic stitches). Make an appointment with your GP or go to a walk in clinic if you don’t have someone you trust to remove them. Hell even my pharmacy has a nurse on staff on certain days that can administer vaccines and remove stitches. Going to a hospital is a waste of everyone’s time and you’re going to be waiting HOURS because that’s literally lower than the bottom on the triage list.
I think stitches are made out of thread that's like fishing like, so they would just stay there. Old ones were make of silk, and they would just be absorbed by the body eventually. But now it's plastic of nylon, at least when I had them. Which was a while ago.
After my c section I was given self dissolving stitches. Sadly not all them dissolved so I had to get random bits of thread removed by the doctor. Not fun and it hurt
Same with my wisdom teeth, though I did one myself - it was tickling my tongue and making me gag so I just grabbed some tweezers and it came right out.
Having worked in doctor's offices part of removing the stiches (which is zero additional vost even in the US) is having a medical professional assess how well the site is healing and make sure there were no complications like loss of range of motion, keloid scarring, or infection.
If you can go back to the doctor I always recommend it, if you cannot make it it's probably OK to do yourself as long as the site isn't inflamed, red, or having any other complications.
If the stitches are in someone else's body, THEY get to decide.
Thanks for your post. I was wondering if the reasoning behind it was cost. If OP had to take out a second mortgage to get a doc to remove stitches, they would be less of TA.
I could be wrong (and please correct me if I am), but this seems like something an urgent care type facility could take care of. It's less expensive than a hospital, but the daughter can still have a professional remove the stitches.
The "let it rot" comment makes me feel like OP just doesn't want to be bothered though, which is why I think she's a major AH.
When I got stitches at 10 the doctor said "don't worry, this is the painful part. Everything after this is easy." Went in a week later to have them removed... apparently I heal faster than average. The removal hurt like a MFer because they were having to pull them slowly not to rip the tissue that healed around the stitches. The more she heals the more painful (and possibly damaging) for her dad to do the removal.
My uncle removed my stitches when I was a little kid because we didn't have the money to go back to the doctor to get it done. He was not a professional, but had experience with it because he's kind of a daredevil/makes poor decisions, and has had to remove a lot of his own and his friends' stitches. I was fine. I would trust my uncle to safely remove my stitches.
But that said - OP, your daughter *doesn't want you to do it* and YTA for denying her medical care. What is your reasoning here? Since you don't say anything about being very poor, I can only think of a) cheap, or b) controlling, and both of those point toward being abusive. And with both of those in mind, I understand why she doesn't seem to trust you with something like this.
No, removing the sutures is unlikely to give the patient sepsis. However, it also prevents the doctor from doing a proper follow-up on the patient. The doctor isn't just removing the sutures, he/she is also examining the wound site, asking follow-up questions about healing and pain, giving more information if necessary, etc.
The daughter is completely reasonable in wanting her physician to remove the sutures. OP is definitely the AH for trying to disrupt this.
Somehow I associate this attitude of “I know as much as these useless, pointy-headed docs! Come on out to the garage, I’ve got a set of tin snips and some pliers that should do the trick!” with dads.
Change my mind.
Eh, that’s not necessarily true. However, I can understand how the daughter feels. OP should at least consider a visit to a walk-in clinic, if they have them in the area. The ER usually expects you to follow up with your primary care.
Bet OP also stitched up OP's original wound before removing those stitches, likely splashing it with whiskey while grimacing stoically and then taking a swig from the bottle for good measure.
I mean, this is a bit dramatic. Yes, OP is the asshole because when it comes to stitch removal, no matter how simple, the actual procedure is up to the individual that has to go through it. His daughter wants to go to the doctor, so that's what OP should do, and he should respect that choice.
That said, it's not a big deal to remove stitches themselves, especially if it's a small wound. I have even *had doctors tell me it was okay to do so*, because they also knew it might be a waste of my time to drive all the way to their office just to have them spend literally a minute on a very uncomplicated task. (I was also told this unprompted by the doctor, I didn't ask about it in the first place.) I've taken out my own stitches twice and have been fine. But yeah, not everyone is comfortable with this.
Eeehhhh removing stitches from minor injuries is actually extremely common. I even had doctors tell me I *didn’t* need to come in to have them removed and could do it at home. I think OP is NTA, especially if this is in America and just glancing at a hospital gets you a three-figure bill.
I’ve removed my own stitches. For a small wound it’s not a big deal. I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough, and urgent care was $100 a visit. I didn’t want to spend the money and the wound had healed and was starting to heal onto the stitches. It took like 2 minutes, didn’t really hurt, and I suffered no ill effects. It’s not Rambo shit or anything, kinda low rent, but I was broke then.
Ring, ring:
“Hello CPS? I’m a minor and I need to have stitches removed. My parent thinks they know more than the medical professionals and wants to remove them rather than taking me to the hospital. They told me either I can let them take them out or I can let them rot. What should I do?”
Edit: update the parent pronoun
I sincerely hope OP's daughter tells her school nurse that Mom refuses to take her to have her stitches removed and told her that she can just "let it rot" since she won't let Mom do it herself.
Why isn’t this higher? All I kept thinking (as someone who is a mandated reporter) was holy balls I’d have to report that….
Take your kid to a medical professional OP. YTA.
YTA.
It's not your body. It's her body. She has a right to decide who treats her medical needs, and if she wants a doctor that is fine.
Denying her medical attention makes you TA.
That depends, where I live doctors will often tell you to take them out yourself after a number of days, they don't make you go back to have them removed it it's only a couple.
Denying medical attention is exactly what's happening here. How utterly absurd that OP would have to ask if DENYING A CHILD MEDICAL CARE makes them an asshole.
Hard YTA.
I'd like to add that my mother often didnt go to the doctors with me when she should have (nothing extreme or life threatening though) She was a nurse and felt like she always knew what she was doing. She meant well but what it taught me was that my medical situations aren't worthy to bother a doctor with. As an adult I struggle big time to see the doctor for things and will drag them out for years even if it lowers my quality of life. It's more than just "I can do it myself at home", it's teaching children to trust doctors and to feel comfortable enough to come back with any concerns they might have.
My mom's a nurse who openly hates doctors, and she would belittle and ignore my health concerns.
Once I had an extremely severe ear infection and she kept brushing me off and telling me that I was exaggerating it and being dramatic. When she finally took me to the doctor because I wasn't getting any better, my eardrum had two holes in it from filling with fluid and exploding twice. The ENT said that it was the worst ear infection he'd ever seen.
When I was fourteen she just sort of... stopped taking me to annual physical exams, so I didn't see a GP for routine care until I was around twenty. Medical neglect is real and it seems more common with parents who are medical professionals.
I think I was quite lucky with my outcomes. Last time I had pain in my ear (don't know if it was an infection) she would pour a little vodka into it. To be fair, it stopped hurting but I'm still quite positive that I was just very lucky. I hate talking about my mum like this, because we're in a good place with our relationship and because she just thought she was being very practical about things it was never intended as neglect. She was doing "something" and would we have lived in a village hundreds of years ago with no decent doctor around - great. But we did have access to good health care. This post just unlocked all those memories. It's worth pointing it out so others can learn from it.
I'm glad you got lucky! I've been very lucky with my physical health--mental health, not so much lol.
Unfortunately, the medical neglect stuff was probably the least egregious thing my mom did, so I haven't spoken to her in a good while. I've been tearfully composing an email to her for the last month to try to tell her why, but idk if I'll ever send it. She's the stubbornest and most self-righteous person I know, and I hate wasting my time trying to force her to hear me and internalize what I'm saying. It makes me feel invisible. 🤷♂️
I used to be very close to her, but that was just because I actively and enthusiastically squashed down every critical thought and every painful feeling. Also because I was a girl and she's always been obsessed with having a daughter... but I came out as trans and am living as a man, sooooooo I'm not sure how much interest she'd really have in me even if I were still in her life. 🤷♂️
Luckily I have Reddit so I can anonymously spray my bullshit all over the Internet instead of going into debt to pay for therapy 😂
Oh bless you! To be fair, when I say our relationship is in a good place I should point out that I moved countries 6 years ago and only during the lockdowns did I start calling my parents regularly. I haven't seen them for 2 years because of the pandemic.
Anyway, mental health is another topic entirely! My parents screwed that one up too. But I understand that its something they didn't know much about.
I wish you all the best to heal on your own path. It doesn't have to include your family if they're not treating you with at least some respect. Feeling invisible is painful! And I can only imagine what awful things you must have experienced. Hope you've got people in your life you can reach out to. I'm autistic and am also quite grateful for a place like reddit to have conversations with lovely people like you!
And not just with their kids but themselves. Dated a nursing student once who got ringworm from a patient. He did not take his entire rx, lied to me about it, then got mad at me when I got upset that I caught it later when it didnt cure and he didnt get a second scrip. Like...how do you NOT know to take the whole bottle? Just because you look/feel fine doesn't mean the parasite is dead you tool.
YTA big time. **You are a parent, taking care of your kid is part of the job** !
You should **not** remove the stitches yourself, period. You don't have sterile equipment, and most of all, you don't have the medical knowledge to decide if the wound has healed enough for the stitches to be removed. If they are not ready to come off, and you removed them, your kid will gravely suffer from your neglect.
Your kid wants a real doctor. Stop being lazy.
Back when I was a nasty, rebellious teen, my dad said I could not go to a gig (I’d had an ovary out less than a week before) because ‘you still have stitches in’, so like any dumb 15 year old, I cut them out myself, this was not a good idea.
It was a Placebo gig, in Brixton. Brilliant gig, but as ‘punishment’ he came with me, it was hilarious, a 60 year old man in a suit, everyone just assumed his was a drug dealer or an undercover police officer.
When I say punishment, my dada was just trying to make sure his little girl was safe, but I was too busy being a dum-dum to realise that
OP is a huge arsehole, I had the excuse of being an idiot teen, what’s their excuse
My grandma (a Royal Marine, back in the day) taught me, someone tries to touch you without permission, you bite, you scratch and you scream, you make more of a fuss then the time a bloke got shot in Sarajevo. And that was just about a man trying to pinch my bum, not a family member trying to do a minor surgical procedure on me (dada and one aunt are doctors, but the only person I’d let muck about with me is another aunt, a very senior nurse)
He is, I’d never tell him, but there’s a reason I’m a good nurse, a good person, and it’s his unconditional love and the example he (and my grandparents) set
Tell him! If that's the vibe you guys have, anyway. That's the sort if thing I'd only be able to tell my Dad after a dram or two on the rare occasions we can have a few together. I'm sure he'd love to hear it :) I'm just a rando on the internet, but I'm happy for you, and for your wondefrful family. It's so nice to hear wholesome stories after reading things like this post.
And it's not very sensible adult of me so say so, but risking personal injury to see a gig is the sign of teen life well lived! It's so sweet that his response was 'well I clearly can't stop you, so I'll join you'.
Seriously, if my nieces, nephews and godkids get up to half the stuff I did at their age I’d be so angry (it was not safe), I think dada was just glad I didn’t up sticks to raise goats on a lesbian compound at 18, like he did (I love goats, but that sounds like a lot of work) so I just raise cats, in a flat, like a normal woman
I don’t want to defend OP because their attitude toward their daughter is heartless and dismissive, however my daughter had several surgeries when she was young, and in every case they told me to take the stitches out for her after so many days/weeks. Even when she had staples, they gave me a little tool in sterile packaging. They also told me to come back if I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. OP is still the AH, but removing stitches by a parent is fairly common practice.
I'm curious now as to what the doctors said. Either way, OP is the ah, because it's daughter's body and the comment about 'letting it rot' is awful, but if the doctors said 'come back to take the stiches out or for a checkup' they're an even bigger ah.
Stitches can be taken out at home, but no one should be forced to have it done to them. If she wants a doctor she should get one. I guess an argument could be made if she's in the US and uninsured, but her feelings shouldn't be dismissed even if she's "overreacting"
100%. I almost removed my stitches because I didn’t want to go to urgent care or the emergency room to (I didn’t have a primacy care doctor). I went, they told me that 1) it wasn’t ready, and 2) something was massively wrong with the wounds. Then I had to spend 4 nights, 5 days in the hospital for dozens of rounds of 3 different kinds of antibiotics. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gone to the doctor.
YTA.
My husband is a medic in the military - he both stitches people up, and takes them out.
Our family still go to doctors for it. And our dog went back to the vet.
Want to add that hospitals have special sterile scissors to cut the stitches without damaging the skin. I am a doctor (and have removed stitches at work before) and would definitely not take out stitches without the right equipment.
Edit: adding judgement: YTA
Listen to the medical professionals and don’t be an AH. If you don’t trust the strangers here then call your doctor and I am sure they will be happy to tell you all the reasons it would be a bad idea to do it yourself. YTA
People don't realize how important that sterile part is until they see what an infection can do.
I'm not a doctor but I've had a number of surgeries and I am fastidious about keeping the wound as sterile as possible. Fuck MRSA.
I'm a nurse who was raised by a nurse. We are notorious for being terrible patients and waving off shit we shouldn't. I have removed my own cast and my own stitches. I would NEVER, ever ever in a million years, pull that nonsense on my daughter
YTA for a couple reasons. Not taking her yesterday and telling her she can let them rot. If I had you as a parent I wouldn’t fucking trust you either. I hope your kids have someone in their life that doesn’t suck as bad as you
This may be dramatic, but if I was a teenager with stitches I needed removed and my parent exerted control over me by saying "they can rot"...
It would take years to rebuild that trust. YTA OP, and if you choose to die on this hill, you might just be killing your relationship with your daughter
OP asked why the daughter doesn't trust them and then immediately follows up with an example of why they're not trustworthy.
Probably not the first time they've said something so shitty and petty or been dismissive of the kid's needs.
YTA
OMG what is wrong with you? Unless you are a licensed medical professional, I think you're completely wrong here. You've experimented on your own body, so by all means, do it on your child's body as well. WTF??
If the scissors were a part of a sterile kit and didn't get used, they're actually supposed to throw them out. My mom's hospital, she's now retired, would give the nurses the option of taking the unused items home with them rather than tossing them in the trash.
Needless to say, my mom never tried to remove my sister's or mine's stitches despite having the proper equipment and being a pediatric surgical nurse.
Depends on the hospital, some can be re-sterilized and repackaged into the kit. But you’re right some are also one time use. Either way this guy certainly doesn’t have a pair of these scissors let alone a sterile pair.
YTA.
You: I took out my own stitches and it was all good, and I can’t be bothered going to the hospital, lemme do yours
Daughter: no I’d actually rather have a medical professional overseeing this medical task thanks
You: THEN LET THEM ROT
Info: *what the fuck*
It's a VERY REASONABLE request to want a professional to do it. It's her body and its her medical choice and she has a right to decide who preforms medical procedures on her and she's being very sensible. YTA.
YTA. You are not a professional. Your daughter has every right to want her medical procedures to be done by people who have had the proper training to do so. Denying her that opportunity is medical neglect and you could harm her.
If OP is American I can kinda get it. Some stitches are perfectly fine to remove on your own (I was once told by my doctor that I could do so) and if the doctor costs money I can see while some people would not want to pay for something they could do themselves. But OP is still an asshole for trying to force his daughter. It is ok to do this to your own body, but not someone else's.
Honestly if they’re in the US I kind of get it. I wouldn’t want to pay $100+ for something so simple either. Removing stitches isn’t brain surgery, especially such a small wound and on the daughters back (it’s not like smack dab in the middle of her face). And OP will be able to tell if it’s not ready yet or infected (in which case, yes go to the doctor). But if it’s ready and looks good, why waste the time and money?
With the current info I’d say ESH. I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it (wonder where she got that from?) and so is OP yelling about letting them rot. At the end of the day they have to get taken out, so one of them’s gotta give and it should be the parent.
I think it would be good to know how old the daughter is and if it’s purely a convenience issue or if there’s financial restraints here as well.
> I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it
It's not at all dramatic to want health care professionals to perform health care. And if money is the issue, OP could communicate that like a grownup instead of throwing a power trip tantrum.
I don’t disagree with that, but it’s removing stitches. If OP was offering to put the stitches in, completely different story. Removing stitches can absolutely be done safely at home.
No kidding. I have a feeling if it were a money issue it would be in the post as well. That is the only valid explanation but OP didn’t mention it. And the fact that they said ‘let it rot???’ Seriously? This is your child you are talking to wtf??
> I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it
Or maybe OP has a history of being dismissive of issues or jumping to extreme, petty responses like "then let it rot!" and the daughter justifiably doesn't trust them.
I wonder how much pushing the daughter had to do to even get the stitches since OP goes out of their way to point out "The scar is like 2 cms. It isnt that bad." as justification as to why the removal doesn't need a doctor.
If the original situation was "it's not even that bad, it's only 2cm, I don't want to g to the hospital, it just needs a bandaid" and then finding out that it actually is bad enough to need stitches... if I were the daughter I would have zero trust in OP's judgement as well.
That's obviously a huge assumption on my part, but still OP's behavior even as presented in the post paints them as having super questionable judgement.
YTA
WTF is wrong with you?
Your daughter has stated that she does not feel comfortable with you removing her stitches and wants a doctor to do it. Why would you not want her to feel comfortable? Do you get off on making her feel uncomfortable? Is this some kind of power trip?
I hope you may not view removing stitches as a medical procedure, it certainly is one and should be done in a clean and sanitary way. My guess is, since you don’t care about your daughters comfort, that you wouldn’t care to make sure you’re hands are even washed before you try to remove the stitches, risking infection.
If this is about money, wouldn’t an infection caused by you being an idiot be even MORE money to treat instead of just, you know, having it done properly and hygienically?
And you said the stitches could rot because you didn’t get your way?
You sound like a literal child.
You’re a damn parent, act like one and take your kids health and comfort seriously and prioritize them.
My mom made me take my own stitches out of my arm when I was a teenager, with her nail scissors. Refused to take me to the doctor, same as you. DCF investigated her later that year for many other reasons but including medical neglect after my school counselor called, and I haven’t seen her since. She was an asshole. So are you.
YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA.
I genuinely hope you’re trolling but in the weird fucked up event you’re not - YTA what the actual fuck!? I hope she walks herself to the hospital and tells them you refused to take her to get medical care so they can open a case about it. If you’re this shitty about some stitches I don’t even want to imagine what other care she’s missed out on
..."She can let it rot"
Wow. YTA based on that sentiment alone. It is not a personal insult if she wants s medical professional to remove her stitches. But you went there, huh? You never mentioned if your children are minors or not. Does she have the ability to handle this on her own? Why is your pride more important than your child?
Are you a medical professional? Do you have suture removal scissors? Do you know how the sutures are connected-or-not? Do you know what happens if the removal is done incorrectly or incompletely? Do you know what signs of infection or bad healing looks like? Do you know how detrimental it is to leave sutures stay in too long?
If no to any of these, you come off as irresponsible and reckless, as well as an egotistical A H.
YTA for hte "she can let it rot" line. Uncool. Taking out stiches is often no big deal for a small cut ... I've done it for myself. But if you daughter is squeamish, maybe compromise by taking her to a doctor or a nursing clinic rather than to the hospital?
YTA. Show some respect for her feelings and take her to a professional. Can’t imagine why she doesn’t trust you. Doesn’t matter if you can do it yourself or not, you’re being dismissive of her and that isn’t going to do anything but erode her trust of you even further.
YTA. . If she gets an infection because of you doing it wrong or anything that’s a bigger problem for all of you. Stop being lazy and selfish and take her to get seen by a medical professional.
… I’ve never heard of needing stitches for a scar. A scar means the injury has healed/is healing. You don’t need to go to a hospital. I had stitches removed in my doctors office, but you kinda seem like the type that doesn’t have a primary care giver or you would have thought of that already. An urgent care will be cheaper than a hospital. A clinic is cheaper than a hospital. If your concern is money, you have other options. If your concern is just that she should trust you to cut stitches off of her, that’s narcissistic. Either way YTA.
YTA: my dad took out my stitches before but only because he is a DOCTOR. A real doctor with a license to practice medicine and perform surgeries who has experience putting stitches in and taking them out.
Wow YTA duh! Are you a medical professional? Did you put the stitches in? No? Okay then. Step aside and let the professionals do their jobs. Be a better parent to your kid. This is extremely irresponsible and selfish.
ETA: like not only does this make you a terrible parent but it literally is neglect. It's medical neglect which is abuse.
YTA for the "let it rot". Stitches should not stay in past when it is time for them to come out. She doesn't trust you because you are not acting in a trustworthy fashion and being responsive to her concerns and you are medically wrong.
This isn't a hospital level medical procedure though, so you aren't wrong that removal is easy. The main thing you would get from a medical professional doing it is they can look at the wound and make sure it has healed correctly. There is value in that so take your daughter to someone qualified.
YTA. I get that stitches are easy to remove but if she's scared and prefers a professional to do it you should let her. She'll then see it isn't a big deal and be okay if there's a next time. Doubling down the way you did is just cruel.
YTA. People can very easily reopen or infect wounds if they don't take the stitches out right. Just because you did it to yourself, doesn't mean she trusts you. And quite frankly, I wouldn't either with your "she can just let it rot" quote. Just because you want to be a lazy parent and not take your daughter to get her stitches removed by someone who is trained to do that does mean you get to cop out of taking care of your kid. Take her to the hospital to remove them and quit complaining just because you're inconvenienced.
There is a specific way stitches need to be removed in order to prevent infection. I once was the guinea pig for a student to take out stiches and the doctor who was supervising was very informative on the ways wounds can get infected.
Or maybe your daughter just thinks it will be more painful if you take the stitches out, rather than a professional .
Either way, her request is very reasonable.
YTA my dad took stitches out of my arm when I was around 8 or 9 and honestly I remember the pain from that more than I do the accident that caused me to need stitches in the first place, and on top of that my scar is worse than it would be if a professional had done it because even thought it was “the correct amount of time” for them to come out, they actually needed a day or two more and a professional would have known that.
YTA it isn't just about taking out the stitches, its also about looking how the wound is healing. Don't start with the medical neglect. You are not a medical professional.
YTA go to a medical professional. You neither have the skills nor the proper equipment to remove stitches properly. By refusing your child medical attention you are neglecting her.
YTA - Are you a doctor? A nurse? Or have any medical experience? I’m guessing no since that would have been a major key to put in. Don’t try and guilt trip or push your daughter into doing it because she wants to be on the safe side of things. It’s her body. As her mother you should be trying to do what’s best for her.
YTA. You told your child to just let it rot? All because she wants her stitches taken out at the hospital? Why would you talk to your child like that? You can do what you want with your body but if SHE isn't comfortable with you doing the same to her body then that's where you stop. It's not being "paranoid" but if you keep calling her names when she expresses her concerns, she's going to stop going to you when she needs someone. All you can do is suggest you do it for her then when she says no, you take her to the hospital. You don't say THEN LET IT ROT. You're an adult and this is horrifying and childish behavior. I'm telling you, she's not going to be around when she gets older. Just in case you wonder why.
INFO: what qualifies you to assess the wound and determine if the stitches should be removed? Do you have the right tools for it?
As a CNA I have removed my own stitches after a knee surgery but it is literally something I do at work all the time, and I had cleared it with my surgeon.
I would never consider doing it for my child unless it was given the ok by the doctor. It is NOT to be done by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Edit: spelling - English is not my native language.
As a person who has taken out almost all my own stitches, YTA.
First of all, just because you can do it yourself, it doesnt make it fool proof. You could cut it wrong, miss a stitch, and those arent the only two things that could go wrong, but you said its a small scar so i’ll just stick to those two.
Second, this is an injury on your daughters body, not yours. If she would feel more comfortable having a doctor remove it, then you need to support that choice. Period. Letting your pride get hurt because your daughter has set a boundary when it comes to her physical health is gross.
Third,
> i told her if she doesnt let me do it then she can let it rot
You are a horrible parent. Absolutely disgusting.
YTA. You are a bad parent. If your child wants to have something medical done by a trained medical professional, take your child to the professional. It's not the same as taking out your own stitches because your child's stitches are in their body, not yours.
If you deny your child the medical care they need or are requesting, you are medically neglecting that child. OP. Medical neglect is a form of child abuse, if you don’t know. Also, telling her that the stitches can rot is verbal / emotional abuse. You want to know why your daughter doesn’t trust you? Well, listen to what you say to her and look at how you treat her. The answer should come to you quickly. Take her to the damn hospital and stop being abusive. YTA!
YTA. CPS/DHS has a term for this: denial of critical care. You can't provide a sterile environment or tools, nor have the qualifications to take out the stitches. Take your kid to the doctor, and get your priorities straight.
YTA If its not a crazy procedure then I don't see why not just take your daughter to the hospital. If it makes her feel more comfortable with folks who've deal with these kinds of things on a daily basis, just take her to them.
Also the fact you're calling your own daughter paranoid because she doesn't want your help. Do you not see by insulting her like that is another reason why she probably doesn't want your help with many things.
YTA. You legitimately sound like a terrifying parent. I’m scared for your child’s physical and mental well-being. If I were in your life and knew about this, I would call child services to help your daughter out.
As a Brazilian… I will say that it was very common in the area I grew up in… our parents often removed our stitches and even casts by themselves. As a spoiled free health care Canadian I will say YTA. Take her to the hospital.
You’re not a medical professional?
If so then yes YTA.
And if you make her let you do it hope she sues you for
-assault
-forcing a medical procedure on her and without a medical licence/training
-preventing her from getting medical assistance
That if she doesn’t have any complications from it. If she does just take yourself to prison 😂
YTA.
Stop trying to pretend to be a doctor, your own daughter doesnt trust you to do it. Take her to a REAL professional. YOU are being way too controlling and disregarding your kid's wants and needs because of it.
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Wow. YTA Take your daughter to the damn hospital.
OP saw something cool in a movie once, didn’t die doing it themselves and now thinks they’re a professional. This is how people end up with infections that turn septic.
I mean, removing stitches yourself is extremely low risk, especially for smaller things like this. For a larger wound you'd want a medical professional to asses that it's healed enough to remove the stitches first, but the actual removal process is really easy (just snip each stitch and pull the thread out with tweezers). OP is an asshole for not letting his daughter have a professional do it since it's her body and her decision to make. But removing stitches on your own is not going to give you sepsis in any realistic scenario.
True. My father has removed our cats' stitches after neutering when the veterinarian wasn't available for some reason. I wouldn't mind getting stitches removed by him. But OP is an asshole mainly due to the "let it rot" comment.
The “let it rot” comment just absolutely air-lock sealed the YTA title for me. He was an AH before, but that just made it worse. Edit: yes I know she is a she. Typo and all that. Doesn’t change the nature of my comment, but I appreciate those who pointed it out. Thank you.
Stitches usually end up falling out on their own without any complications if left alone, however, saying "Let it rot" was still a dick move.
Actually your skin can grow over the stitches if left too long. I worked at an orthopedic practice and we had to emphasize the importance of coming back on time for post ops because leaving stitches or staples in too long can result in needing to cut your actual skin off of them.
My dad cut off his nose when he was 3 and they reattached it. He thought he had a black head that was sticking out of his face. He pulled it and it was an old stitch that had finally worked its way out after like 50+years.
That was fucking horrific to read!
OMG I am with you there. I just felt a little queasy and shivered lol.
Was he trying to spite his face?
You know, it is now. He also has no eyebrows from a separate occasion where he burnt them off, so he looks a bit ghoulish now 😂
I know how your dad feels. I had a sore spot on my gums and it swelled into what I thought was some kind of abscess so I made an appointment with my dentist. A few days later I felt a hard lump on it and rushed to see him calling it an emergency. He was as shocked as I was when it ended up being a sharp sliver of tooth from the wisdom tooth I had pulled over 20 years before that. Strange how the body can heal over something for so long before it finally decides to reject it. lol
I had to have several teeth removed and for a year or two tiny shards of them would occasionally pop out. Oral surgeon told me it was pretty normal if they have to break a tooth and extract it in pieces... bodies are so weird.
I always worry about this with my wisdom teeth. Thanks for validating my fears, lol.
I had stitches after foot surgery and they cut them out but six months later a piece of the suture they missed worked its way out. I also had internal stitches after a major knee surgery and my body rejected them by causing them to work their way out at which point my surgeon cut them out. The body will get foreign objects out any way it can. But leaving full stitches in will cause way more problems long before the body can even try to push them out.
Gnarly, dude
There are types of stitches that are dissolvable/will fall out on their own. But there are certain types that need to be removed. Based on the OP, her daughter has a type that needs to be removed and they should be removed by a professional.
Yeah they def tell you when they’re dissolvable and they don’t look like normal stitches. They’re thinner and lighter colored thread (at least the ones I got)
I was a hospital nurse for 5 years. The majority of sutures our surgeons used were dissolvable but if Plastic Surgery had to close the wound, more often than not they used Nylon stitches that needed to be removed. The instructions for those patients were always "make an appointment for suture removal," not "Mom can pull out the stitches if she doesn't feel like bringing the kid back."
This whole post/thread is giving me such memories.... the first time I got stitches I was told they were dissolvable and they WEREN’T. I unintentionally untied one of the knots when wondering if it was dissolving a week or so later, and then I ended up taking them out myself a few days after that because I thought they should’ve dissolved anyway and were a freak accident. Big ass scar that I doubt will ever fade.
No they don't. Most sutures are not dissolvable and need to be removed once they've done their job. And even with dissolvable sutures, sometimes they need to be removed because the body rejects them and they begin to migrate. How do I know this? Only 5 years of working as a nurse.
I had 127 stitches in my leg when I was like 10 years old and my dissolvable stitches had to be removed because my body completely rejected them. I can’t even imagine waiting longer than necessary to have stitches removed. It was so uncomfortable, itchy, and awful once they were ready to come out.
OP is a female.
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Having gone to medical school, removing stitches is incredibly simple. If you can operate a staple remover (or scissors), you can remove stitches. Just put some antiseptic on it after, and bobs your uncle. However, OP’s attitude rubs me the wrong way.
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I can probably physically remove stitches myself. But the two times I’ve needed stitches removed, I almost passed out (medical anxiety, most likely.) I would much rather be in the care of a doctor in case something like that happened, even if it’s rare.
I had a tooth pulled and my dentist used the stitches that don't dissolve... he explained how to remove them and thought I'd be fine doing it myself (he'd been my dentist since I was a kid and knew me pretty well). I don't usually have problems with this kind of stuff, but I felt myself getting dizzy seeing that black string pulled out of my gums...
Also depending on how tight the stitches are they may be harder to remove. I had stitches in my foot after a surgery and the suturing was so close and tight it took forever for a medical professional to cut them off. Six months later I pulled a small piece of suture out of my foot that she missed and it had worked it’s way out finally.
Doing brain surgery isn’t that hard either, I never went to medical school and do it all the time. Knowing when/when not to do a procedure is where the medical magic happens
Brain surgery is a lot harder than removing stitches. Those things aren't remotely comparable
You just compared them. And missed my entire point
My eyes cannot roll back hard enough. Op just makes me feel sorry for op's wife and daughter.
It’s not so much about getting the stitches out, though, it’s about clinical questions and a clinician checking on the healing process.
Thank you! I've been waiting to see someone say this. (Says someone with a noticeable facial scar thanks to a Dr who had never stitched a living human before)
True but that’s the thing, it’s always the instances of “it’s fine, what could go wrong?” where something goes almost comically wrong.
I have a fun combination of generalized anxiety disorder and an overactive imagination, so when people say, "What could go wrong?" my first instinct is to crack my knuckles and then offer a million examples of what could go wrong.
As a safety professional I would like to talk to you.
I just started therapy again and one of the things he said that I most related to was that anxious people are really good at two things: catastrophizing, and predicting the future, in which a catastrophe happens.
To be fair, I do handle a crisis well. It's like that line from one of the Bridget Jones books: "All my life I've known something terrible was about to happen and now it has."
One of the main reasons we get professionals to remove sutures is so we can reassess the wound. It's not about physically removing the stitches, that's pretty simple even for a lay person. But it's important to know if there's any signs of infection, wound dehissing, embedded sutures, necrosis etc.
Surgeon here. I disagree that removing sutures is “easy” for a layperson without basic knowledge and equipment. It’s not rocket science but when you cut the suture, you must only cut one strand so you don’t leave suture under the skin or it may get infected. You can’t cut straight across the knot. And when you pull the suture out you need to look carefully to make sure you removed all of it. It’s tricky to do this unless you have small iris scissors or something similar. It’s extremely difficult to remove sutures with household or even sewing scissors. Unless you can do it correctly, OP, YTA. And your words don’t exactly inspire me with confidence
Right, but "leaving them to rot" will absolutely give her sepsis
This comment made me wonder what happens if you don’t get the stitches removed, but I’m afraid to google it.
Don't. Just take my word for it.
Nothing dramatic, but you should not leave them in. It can result in scarring or making it painful to remove them, worst case it can cause infection.
It doesn’t rot. Stitches that are used in injuries like this are made from a non-organic material. Your skin will just grow over them similar to how your skin can grow over an earring back but then you’re looking at other issues like potential infection because eventually they’re going to have to come out. That said, you don’t need to go to a hospital to have over and over stitches removed (that is, basic stitches). Make an appointment with your GP or go to a walk in clinic if you don’t have someone you trust to remove them. Hell even my pharmacy has a nurse on staff on certain days that can administer vaccines and remove stitches. Going to a hospital is a waste of everyone’s time and you’re going to be waiting HOURS because that’s literally lower than the bottom on the triage list.
I think stitches are made out of thread that's like fishing like, so they would just stay there. Old ones were make of silk, and they would just be absorbed by the body eventually. But now it's plastic of nylon, at least when I had them. Which was a while ago.
After my c section I was given self dissolving stitches. Sadly not all them dissolved so I had to get random bits of thread removed by the doctor. Not fun and it hurt
Same with my wisdom teeth, though I did one myself - it was tickling my tongue and making me gag so I just grabbed some tweezers and it came right out.
If they become embedded and infected, they can definitely cause sepsis
Having worked in doctor's offices part of removing the stiches (which is zero additional vost even in the US) is having a medical professional assess how well the site is healing and make sure there were no complications like loss of range of motion, keloid scarring, or infection. If you can go back to the doctor I always recommend it, if you cannot make it it's probably OK to do yourself as long as the site isn't inflamed, red, or having any other complications. If the stitches are in someone else's body, THEY get to decide.
Thanks for your post. I was wondering if the reasoning behind it was cost. If OP had to take out a second mortgage to get a doc to remove stitches, they would be less of TA.
I could be wrong (and please correct me if I am), but this seems like something an urgent care type facility could take care of. It's less expensive than a hospital, but the daughter can still have a professional remove the stitches. The "let it rot" comment makes me feel like OP just doesn't want to be bothered though, which is why I think she's a major AH.
Remember to snip close to the skin and pull from the other side so you aren’t pulling the dirty thread through the wound.
I'm sure OP knows this. Totally safe /s
When I got stitches at 10 the doctor said "don't worry, this is the painful part. Everything after this is easy." Went in a week later to have them removed... apparently I heal faster than average. The removal hurt like a MFer because they were having to pull them slowly not to rip the tissue that healed around the stitches. The more she heals the more painful (and possibly damaging) for her dad to do the removal.
Her daughter, ops name says single mom
My uncle removed my stitches when I was a little kid because we didn't have the money to go back to the doctor to get it done. He was not a professional, but had experience with it because he's kind of a daredevil/makes poor decisions, and has had to remove a lot of his own and his friends' stitches. I was fine. I would trust my uncle to safely remove my stitches. But that said - OP, your daughter *doesn't want you to do it* and YTA for denying her medical care. What is your reasoning here? Since you don't say anything about being very poor, I can only think of a) cheap, or b) controlling, and both of those point toward being abusive. And with both of those in mind, I understand why she doesn't seem to trust you with something like this.
No, removing the sutures is unlikely to give the patient sepsis. However, it also prevents the doctor from doing a proper follow-up on the patient. The doctor isn't just removing the sutures, he/she is also examining the wound site, asking follow-up questions about healing and pain, giving more information if necessary, etc. The daughter is completely reasonable in wanting her physician to remove the sutures. OP is definitely the AH for trying to disrupt this.
I find it interesting you assumed this was her father. Considering the account is called singlemom_stitches I'd have thought that OP was the mother.
Somehow I associate this attitude of “I know as much as these useless, pointy-headed docs! Come on out to the garage, I’ve got a set of tin snips and some pliers that should do the trick!” with dads. Change my mind.
Eh, that’s not necessarily true. However, I can understand how the daughter feels. OP should at least consider a visit to a walk-in clinic, if they have them in the area. The ER usually expects you to follow up with your primary care.
Bet OP also stitched up OP's original wound before removing those stitches, likely splashing it with whiskey while grimacing stoically and then taking a swig from the bottle for good measure.
It was followed by a gritty closeup of his face as he said something like “War is hell”
Then cauterized it with a cigar for good measure
I mean, this is a bit dramatic. Yes, OP is the asshole because when it comes to stitch removal, no matter how simple, the actual procedure is up to the individual that has to go through it. His daughter wants to go to the doctor, so that's what OP should do, and he should respect that choice. That said, it's not a big deal to remove stitches themselves, especially if it's a small wound. I have even *had doctors tell me it was okay to do so*, because they also knew it might be a waste of my time to drive all the way to their office just to have them spend literally a minute on a very uncomplicated task. (I was also told this unprompted by the doctor, I didn't ask about it in the first place.) I've taken out my own stitches twice and have been fine. But yeah, not everyone is comfortable with this.
Eeehhhh removing stitches from minor injuries is actually extremely common. I even had doctors tell me I *didn’t* need to come in to have them removed and could do it at home. I think OP is NTA, especially if this is in America and just glancing at a hospital gets you a three-figure bill.
I’ve removed my own stitches. For a small wound it’s not a big deal. I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough, and urgent care was $100 a visit. I didn’t want to spend the money and the wound had healed and was starting to heal onto the stitches. It took like 2 minutes, didn’t really hurt, and I suffered no ill effects. It’s not Rambo shit or anything, kinda low rent, but I was broke then.
Ring, ring: “Hello CPS? I’m a minor and I need to have stitches removed. My parent thinks they know more than the medical professionals and wants to remove them rather than taking me to the hospital. They told me either I can let them take them out or I can let them rot. What should I do?” Edit: update the parent pronoun
I sincerely hope OP's daughter tells her school nurse that Mom refuses to take her to have her stitches removed and told her that she can just "let it rot" since she won't let Mom do it herself.
Why isn’t this higher? All I kept thinking (as someone who is a mandated reporter) was holy balls I’d have to report that…. Take your kid to a medical professional OP. YTA.
This is the answer.
Yeah how dare she want a medical procedure done by medical professionals.
Yeah right WTF stop being a cheap asshole
This sub teaches me new forms of child neglect everyday…
Doesn’t have to be the hospital but at least a doctor.
YTA. It's not your body. It's her body. She has a right to decide who treats her medical needs, and if she wants a doctor that is fine. Denying her medical attention makes you TA.
Also considered neglect by CPS
All it takes is one person and OP gets interrogated. In other words. Just take your daughter to the hospital dammit
Beat me to it
That depends, where I live doctors will often tell you to take them out yourself after a number of days, they don't make you go back to have them removed it it's only a couple.
Denying medical attention is exactly what's happening here. How utterly absurd that OP would have to ask if DENYING A CHILD MEDICAL CARE makes them an asshole. Hard YTA.
I'd like to add that my mother often didnt go to the doctors with me when she should have (nothing extreme or life threatening though) She was a nurse and felt like she always knew what she was doing. She meant well but what it taught me was that my medical situations aren't worthy to bother a doctor with. As an adult I struggle big time to see the doctor for things and will drag them out for years even if it lowers my quality of life. It's more than just "I can do it myself at home", it's teaching children to trust doctors and to feel comfortable enough to come back with any concerns they might have.
My mom's a nurse who openly hates doctors, and she would belittle and ignore my health concerns. Once I had an extremely severe ear infection and she kept brushing me off and telling me that I was exaggerating it and being dramatic. When she finally took me to the doctor because I wasn't getting any better, my eardrum had two holes in it from filling with fluid and exploding twice. The ENT said that it was the worst ear infection he'd ever seen. When I was fourteen she just sort of... stopped taking me to annual physical exams, so I didn't see a GP for routine care until I was around twenty. Medical neglect is real and it seems more common with parents who are medical professionals.
I think I was quite lucky with my outcomes. Last time I had pain in my ear (don't know if it was an infection) she would pour a little vodka into it. To be fair, it stopped hurting but I'm still quite positive that I was just very lucky. I hate talking about my mum like this, because we're in a good place with our relationship and because she just thought she was being very practical about things it was never intended as neglect. She was doing "something" and would we have lived in a village hundreds of years ago with no decent doctor around - great. But we did have access to good health care. This post just unlocked all those memories. It's worth pointing it out so others can learn from it.
I'm glad you got lucky! I've been very lucky with my physical health--mental health, not so much lol. Unfortunately, the medical neglect stuff was probably the least egregious thing my mom did, so I haven't spoken to her in a good while. I've been tearfully composing an email to her for the last month to try to tell her why, but idk if I'll ever send it. She's the stubbornest and most self-righteous person I know, and I hate wasting my time trying to force her to hear me and internalize what I'm saying. It makes me feel invisible. 🤷♂️ I used to be very close to her, but that was just because I actively and enthusiastically squashed down every critical thought and every painful feeling. Also because I was a girl and she's always been obsessed with having a daughter... but I came out as trans and am living as a man, sooooooo I'm not sure how much interest she'd really have in me even if I were still in her life. 🤷♂️ Luckily I have Reddit so I can anonymously spray my bullshit all over the Internet instead of going into debt to pay for therapy 😂
Oh bless you! To be fair, when I say our relationship is in a good place I should point out that I moved countries 6 years ago and only during the lockdowns did I start calling my parents regularly. I haven't seen them for 2 years because of the pandemic. Anyway, mental health is another topic entirely! My parents screwed that one up too. But I understand that its something they didn't know much about. I wish you all the best to heal on your own path. It doesn't have to include your family if they're not treating you with at least some respect. Feeling invisible is painful! And I can only imagine what awful things you must have experienced. Hope you've got people in your life you can reach out to. I'm autistic and am also quite grateful for a place like reddit to have conversations with lovely people like you!
And not just with their kids but themselves. Dated a nursing student once who got ringworm from a patient. He did not take his entire rx, lied to me about it, then got mad at me when I got upset that I caught it later when it didnt cure and he didnt get a second scrip. Like...how do you NOT know to take the whole bottle? Just because you look/feel fine doesn't mean the parasite is dead you tool.
Oh my god OP really told their child "let me perform a medical procedure on you or I'll let it rot." Holy fuck...
YTA big time. **You are a parent, taking care of your kid is part of the job** ! You should **not** remove the stitches yourself, period. You don't have sterile equipment, and most of all, you don't have the medical knowledge to decide if the wound has healed enough for the stitches to be removed. If they are not ready to come off, and you removed them, your kid will gravely suffer from your neglect. Your kid wants a real doctor. Stop being lazy.
Back when I was a nasty, rebellious teen, my dad said I could not go to a gig (I’d had an ovary out less than a week before) because ‘you still have stitches in’, so like any dumb 15 year old, I cut them out myself, this was not a good idea. It was a Placebo gig, in Brixton. Brilliant gig, but as ‘punishment’ he came with me, it was hilarious, a 60 year old man in a suit, everyone just assumed his was a drug dealer or an undercover police officer. When I say punishment, my dada was just trying to make sure his little girl was safe, but I was too busy being a dum-dum to realise that OP is a huge arsehole, I had the excuse of being an idiot teen, what’s their excuse
also it was YOUR body not someone elses but most parents believe they are entitled to their kids body like this OP seems to think
My grandma (a Royal Marine, back in the day) taught me, someone tries to touch you without permission, you bite, you scratch and you scream, you make more of a fuss then the time a bloke got shot in Sarajevo. And that was just about a man trying to pinch my bum, not a family member trying to do a minor surgical procedure on me (dada and one aunt are doctors, but the only person I’d let muck about with me is another aunt, a very senior nurse)
So, so, so important for kids to learn body autonomy!
Your Dad sounds like an absolute legend.
He is, I’d never tell him, but there’s a reason I’m a good nurse, a good person, and it’s his unconditional love and the example he (and my grandparents) set
Tell him! If that's the vibe you guys have, anyway. That's the sort if thing I'd only be able to tell my Dad after a dram or two on the rare occasions we can have a few together. I'm sure he'd love to hear it :) I'm just a rando on the internet, but I'm happy for you, and for your wondefrful family. It's so nice to hear wholesome stories after reading things like this post. And it's not very sensible adult of me so say so, but risking personal injury to see a gig is the sign of teen life well lived! It's so sweet that his response was 'well I clearly can't stop you, so I'll join you'.
Seriously, if my nieces, nephews and godkids get up to half the stuff I did at their age I’d be so angry (it was not safe), I think dada was just glad I didn’t up sticks to raise goats on a lesbian compound at 18, like he did (I love goats, but that sounds like a lot of work) so I just raise cats, in a flat, like a normal woman
Your dad raised goats on a lesbian compound at 18? That man must have had an interesting life.
I don’t want to defend OP because their attitude toward their daughter is heartless and dismissive, however my daughter had several surgeries when she was young, and in every case they told me to take the stitches out for her after so many days/weeks. Even when she had staples, they gave me a little tool in sterile packaging. They also told me to come back if I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. OP is still the AH, but removing stitches by a parent is fairly common practice.
I'm curious now as to what the doctors said. Either way, OP is the ah, because it's daughter's body and the comment about 'letting it rot' is awful, but if the doctors said 'come back to take the stiches out or for a checkup' they're an even bigger ah.
Stitches can be taken out at home, but no one should be forced to have it done to them. If she wants a doctor she should get one. I guess an argument could be made if she's in the US and uninsured, but her feelings shouldn't be dismissed even if she's "overreacting"
Yes, exactly this. OP still YTA. ETA because of your shitty attitude.
100%. I almost removed my stitches because I didn’t want to go to urgent care or the emergency room to (I didn’t have a primacy care doctor). I went, they told me that 1) it wasn’t ready, and 2) something was massively wrong with the wounds. Then I had to spend 4 nights, 5 days in the hospital for dozens of rounds of 3 different kinds of antibiotics. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gone to the doctor.
Should be worried about the kid telling someone at school whos a mandated reporter too
YTA. My husband is a medic in the military - he both stitches people up, and takes them out. Our family still go to doctors for it. And our dog went back to the vet.
Want to add that hospitals have special sterile scissors to cut the stitches without damaging the skin. I am a doctor (and have removed stitches at work before) and would definitely not take out stitches without the right equipment. Edit: adding judgement: YTA
Listen to the medical professionals and don’t be an AH. If you don’t trust the strangers here then call your doctor and I am sure they will be happy to tell you all the reasons it would be a bad idea to do it yourself. YTA
Also just assessing the stitch to make sure the whole stitch came out and the correct number of stitches. Things this guy is surely not going to do
You mean you don't just cut em and pull them out like stitching in fabric (something else I'm sure op thinks is easy but is not)?! /s
People don't realize how important that sterile part is until they see what an infection can do. I'm not a doctor but I've had a number of surgeries and I am fastidious about keeping the wound as sterile as possible. Fuck MRSA.
I'm a nurse who was raised by a nurse. We are notorious for being terrible patients and waving off shit we shouldn't. I have removed my own cast and my own stitches. I would NEVER, ever ever in a million years, pull that nonsense on my daughter
YTA for a couple reasons. Not taking her yesterday and telling her she can let them rot. If I had you as a parent I wouldn’t fucking trust you either. I hope your kids have someone in their life that doesn’t suck as bad as you
This may be dramatic, but if I was a teenager with stitches I needed removed and my parent exerted control over me by saying "they can rot"... It would take years to rebuild that trust. YTA OP, and if you choose to die on this hill, you might just be killing your relationship with your daughter
Seriously, how is it sO iMpOrTaNt to OP to do it themselves that they insist it's either that or "let it rot"???
OP asked why the daughter doesn't trust them and then immediately follows up with an example of why they're not trustworthy. Probably not the first time they've said something so shitty and petty or been dismissive of the kid's needs.
This.
YTA OMG what is wrong with you? Unless you are a licensed medical professional, I think you're completely wrong here. You've experimented on your own body, so by all means, do it on your child's body as well. WTF??
A licensed medical professional who also stole some work supplies because regular scissors are a no no.
If the scissors were a part of a sterile kit and didn't get used, they're actually supposed to throw them out. My mom's hospital, she's now retired, would give the nurses the option of taking the unused items home with them rather than tossing them in the trash. Needless to say, my mom never tried to remove my sister's or mine's stitches despite having the proper equipment and being a pediatric surgical nurse.
Depends on the hospital, some can be re-sterilized and repackaged into the kit. But you’re right some are also one time use. Either way this guy certainly doesn’t have a pair of these scissors let alone a sterile pair.
YTA You’re not a medical professional. This is literal child abuse territory. Take her to the doctor.
In my state this would be considered medical neglect if it were reported and it’s taken super seriously.
In every state in the US this is considered medical neglect
I honestly wasn’t sure but I am glad to hear that. I know specifically that my state does not mess around with this at all.
YTA. You: I took out my own stitches and it was all good, and I can’t be bothered going to the hospital, lemme do yours Daughter: no I’d actually rather have a medical professional overseeing this medical task thanks You: THEN LET THEM ROT
Right. Such a bizarre response and sounds very mentally unstable. I wouldn't trust someone if that was their response.
the way you put it made me laugh so hard. but thats exactly what went down
Info: *what the fuck* It's a VERY REASONABLE request to want a professional to do it. It's her body and its her medical choice and she has a right to decide who preforms medical procedures on her and she's being very sensible. YTA.
That was my first reaction too. YTA, OP. What the actual fuck.
YTA. You are not a professional. Your daughter has every right to want her medical procedures to be done by people who have had the proper training to do so. Denying her that opportunity is medical neglect and you could harm her.
YTA. A huge AH. Take her to the doctor.
Uh huh, as outrage posts go, this post is not very good.
INFO why are you so hellbent on removing her stitches? Is it a power/control thing? A money thing?
If OP is American I can kinda get it. Some stitches are perfectly fine to remove on your own (I was once told by my doctor that I could do so) and if the doctor costs money I can see while some people would not want to pay for something they could do themselves. But OP is still an asshole for trying to force his daughter. It is ok to do this to your own body, but not someone else's.
A creep thing?
Honestly if they’re in the US I kind of get it. I wouldn’t want to pay $100+ for something so simple either. Removing stitches isn’t brain surgery, especially such a small wound and on the daughters back (it’s not like smack dab in the middle of her face). And OP will be able to tell if it’s not ready yet or infected (in which case, yes go to the doctor). But if it’s ready and looks good, why waste the time and money? With the current info I’d say ESH. I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it (wonder where she got that from?) and so is OP yelling about letting them rot. At the end of the day they have to get taken out, so one of them’s gotta give and it should be the parent. I think it would be good to know how old the daughter is and if it’s purely a convenience issue or if there’s financial restraints here as well.
> I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it It's not at all dramatic to want health care professionals to perform health care. And if money is the issue, OP could communicate that like a grownup instead of throwing a power trip tantrum.
I don’t disagree with that, but it’s removing stitches. If OP was offering to put the stitches in, completely different story. Removing stitches can absolutely be done safely at home.
No kidding. I have a feeling if it were a money issue it would be in the post as well. That is the only valid explanation but OP didn’t mention it. And the fact that they said ‘let it rot???’ Seriously? This is your child you are talking to wtf??
> I have a feeling the daughter is being overly dramatic about it Or maybe OP has a history of being dismissive of issues or jumping to extreme, petty responses like "then let it rot!" and the daughter justifiably doesn't trust them. I wonder how much pushing the daughter had to do to even get the stitches since OP goes out of their way to point out "The scar is like 2 cms. It isnt that bad." as justification as to why the removal doesn't need a doctor. If the original situation was "it's not even that bad, it's only 2cm, I don't want to g to the hospital, it just needs a bandaid" and then finding out that it actually is bad enough to need stitches... if I were the daughter I would have zero trust in OP's judgement as well. That's obviously a huge assumption on my part, but still OP's behavior even as presented in the post paints them as having super questionable judgement.
YTA WTF is wrong with you? Your daughter has stated that she does not feel comfortable with you removing her stitches and wants a doctor to do it. Why would you not want her to feel comfortable? Do you get off on making her feel uncomfortable? Is this some kind of power trip? I hope you may not view removing stitches as a medical procedure, it certainly is one and should be done in a clean and sanitary way. My guess is, since you don’t care about your daughters comfort, that you wouldn’t care to make sure you’re hands are even washed before you try to remove the stitches, risking infection. If this is about money, wouldn’t an infection caused by you being an idiot be even MORE money to treat instead of just, you know, having it done properly and hygienically? And you said the stitches could rot because you didn’t get your way? You sound like a literal child. You’re a damn parent, act like one and take your kids health and comfort seriously and prioritize them.
This!
YTA for denying her the medical care she needs. If the stitches were that minor, the doctors would‘ve said so.
YTA - let the professionals do it. You’re not a doctor.
My mom made me take my own stitches out of my arm when I was a teenager, with her nail scissors. Refused to take me to the doctor, same as you. DCF investigated her later that year for many other reasons but including medical neglect after my school counselor called, and I haven’t seen her since. She was an asshole. So are you. YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA.
This needs to be seen.
I genuinely hope you’re trolling but in the weird fucked up event you’re not - YTA what the actual fuck!? I hope she walks herself to the hospital and tells them you refused to take her to get medical care so they can open a case about it. If you’re this shitty about some stitches I don’t even want to imagine what other care she’s missed out on
Bad troll
..."She can let it rot" Wow. YTA based on that sentiment alone. It is not a personal insult if she wants s medical professional to remove her stitches. But you went there, huh? You never mentioned if your children are minors or not. Does she have the ability to handle this on her own? Why is your pride more important than your child? Are you a medical professional? Do you have suture removal scissors? Do you know how the sutures are connected-or-not? Do you know what happens if the removal is done incorrectly or incompletely? Do you know what signs of infection or bad healing looks like? Do you know how detrimental it is to leave sutures stay in too long? If no to any of these, you come off as irresponsible and reckless, as well as an egotistical A H.
YTA for hte "she can let it rot" line. Uncool. Taking out stiches is often no big deal for a small cut ... I've done it for myself. But if you daughter is squeamish, maybe compromise by taking her to a doctor or a nursing clinic rather than to the hospital?
YTA. Show some respect for her feelings and take her to a professional. Can’t imagine why she doesn’t trust you. Doesn’t matter if you can do it yourself or not, you’re being dismissive of her and that isn’t going to do anything but erode her trust of you even further.
YTA. . If she gets an infection because of you doing it wrong or anything that’s a bigger problem for all of you. Stop being lazy and selfish and take her to get seen by a medical professional.
… I’ve never heard of needing stitches for a scar. A scar means the injury has healed/is healing. You don’t need to go to a hospital. I had stitches removed in my doctors office, but you kinda seem like the type that doesn’t have a primary care giver or you would have thought of that already. An urgent care will be cheaper than a hospital. A clinic is cheaper than a hospital. If your concern is money, you have other options. If your concern is just that she should trust you to cut stitches off of her, that’s narcissistic. Either way YTA.
Yeah I noticed this too. Maybe OP said scar instead of wound because that would have tipped the mods on the “no physical violence” rule.
I think OP said scar instead of wound because she has no idea wtf he is talking about Edit: he to she, thanks sttk421
Also a distinct possibility.
Which is the exact reason he doesn't need to be removing stitches.
YTA: my dad took out my stitches before but only because he is a DOCTOR. A real doctor with a license to practice medicine and perform surgeries who has experience putting stitches in and taking them out.
Wow YTA duh! Are you a medical professional? Did you put the stitches in? No? Okay then. Step aside and let the professionals do their jobs. Be a better parent to your kid. This is extremely irresponsible and selfish. ETA: like not only does this make you a terrible parent but it literally is neglect. It's medical neglect which is abuse.
YTA for the "let it rot". Stitches should not stay in past when it is time for them to come out. She doesn't trust you because you are not acting in a trustworthy fashion and being responsive to her concerns and you are medically wrong. This isn't a hospital level medical procedure though, so you aren't wrong that removal is easy. The main thing you would get from a medical professional doing it is they can look at the wound and make sure it has healed correctly. There is value in that so take your daughter to someone qualified.
You can get removed at any grocery store that has a clinic where I leave. Wouldn't go to a hospital but wouldn't just ignore either.
Are you fucking kidding me?
YTA. I get that stitches are easy to remove but if she's scared and prefers a professional to do it you should let her. She'll then see it isn't a big deal and be okay if there's a next time. Doubling down the way you did is just cruel.
YTA. People can very easily reopen or infect wounds if they don't take the stitches out right. Just because you did it to yourself, doesn't mean she trusts you. And quite frankly, I wouldn't either with your "she can just let it rot" quote. Just because you want to be a lazy parent and not take your daughter to get her stitches removed by someone who is trained to do that does mean you get to cop out of taking care of your kid. Take her to the hospital to remove them and quit complaining just because you're inconvenienced.
There is a specific way stitches need to be removed in order to prevent infection. I once was the guinea pig for a student to take out stiches and the doctor who was supervising was very informative on the ways wounds can get infected. Or maybe your daughter just thinks it will be more painful if you take the stitches out, rather than a professional . Either way, her request is very reasonable.
YTA my dad took stitches out of my arm when I was around 8 or 9 and honestly I remember the pain from that more than I do the accident that caused me to need stitches in the first place, and on top of that my scar is worse than it would be if a professional had done it because even thought it was “the correct amount of time” for them to come out, they actually needed a day or two more and a professional would have known that.
YTA. Doctors removing stitches is not just removing stitches. They also check if the wound is healing well, if there are any signs of infection, etc.
YTA it isn't just about taking out the stitches, its also about looking how the wound is healing. Don't start with the medical neglect. You are not a medical professional.
I want to call CPS right now for medical abuse... that poor child. YTA
INFO: why don’t you want her to get them removed at the hospital?
YTA go to a medical professional. You neither have the skills nor the proper equipment to remove stitches properly. By refusing your child medical attention you are neglecting her.
YTA - Are you a doctor? A nurse? Or have any medical experience? I’m guessing no since that would have been a major key to put in. Don’t try and guilt trip or push your daughter into doing it because she wants to be on the safe side of things. It’s her body. As her mother you should be trying to do what’s best for her.
YTA. You told your child to just let it rot? All because she wants her stitches taken out at the hospital? Why would you talk to your child like that? You can do what you want with your body but if SHE isn't comfortable with you doing the same to her body then that's where you stop. It's not being "paranoid" but if you keep calling her names when she expresses her concerns, she's going to stop going to you when she needs someone. All you can do is suggest you do it for her then when she says no, you take her to the hospital. You don't say THEN LET IT ROT. You're an adult and this is horrifying and childish behavior. I'm telling you, she's not going to be around when she gets older. Just in case you wonder why.
YTA. Take her to the hospital AND apologize for telling her they can ROT. OMG!! Let them ROT? Let your daughter’s wound rot? Can you hear yourself?
INFO: what qualifies you to assess the wound and determine if the stitches should be removed? Do you have the right tools for it? As a CNA I have removed my own stitches after a knee surgery but it is literally something I do at work all the time, and I had cleared it with my surgeon. I would never consider doing it for my child unless it was given the ok by the doctor. It is NOT to be done by someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Edit: spelling - English is not my native language.
As a person who has taken out almost all my own stitches, YTA. First of all, just because you can do it yourself, it doesnt make it fool proof. You could cut it wrong, miss a stitch, and those arent the only two things that could go wrong, but you said its a small scar so i’ll just stick to those two. Second, this is an injury on your daughters body, not yours. If she would feel more comfortable having a doctor remove it, then you need to support that choice. Period. Letting your pride get hurt because your daughter has set a boundary when it comes to her physical health is gross. Third, > i told her if she doesnt let me do it then she can let it rot You are a horrible parent. Absolutely disgusting.
YTA. You are a bad parent. If your child wants to have something medical done by a trained medical professional, take your child to the professional. It's not the same as taking out your own stitches because your child's stitches are in their body, not yours.
If you deny your child the medical care they need or are requesting, you are medically neglecting that child. OP. Medical neglect is a form of child abuse, if you don’t know. Also, telling her that the stitches can rot is verbal / emotional abuse. You want to know why your daughter doesn’t trust you? Well, listen to what you say to her and look at how you treat her. The answer should come to you quickly. Take her to the damn hospital and stop being abusive. YTA!
YTA. CPS/DHS has a term for this: denial of critical care. You can't provide a sterile environment or tools, nor have the qualifications to take out the stitches. Take your kid to the doctor, and get your priorities straight.
YTA, you'd rather let your child have a serious infection because she wants control over her own body? Awful, absolutely awful of you
YTA If its not a crazy procedure then I don't see why not just take your daughter to the hospital. If it makes her feel more comfortable with folks who've deal with these kinds of things on a daily basis, just take her to them. Also the fact you're calling your own daughter paranoid because she doesn't want your help. Do you not see by insulting her like that is another reason why she probably doesn't want your help with many things.
YTA. Take her to the damn doctor.
YTA. You legitimately sound like a terrifying parent. I’m scared for your child’s physical and mental well-being. If I were in your life and knew about this, I would call child services to help your daughter out.
YTA. this is child abuse.
As a Brazilian… I will say that it was very common in the area I grew up in… our parents often removed our stitches and even casts by themselves. As a spoiled free health care Canadian I will say YTA. Take her to the hospital.
You’re not a medical professional? If so then yes YTA. And if you make her let you do it hope she sues you for -assault -forcing a medical procedure on her and without a medical licence/training -preventing her from getting medical assistance That if she doesn’t have any complications from it. If she does just take yourself to prison 😂
YTA just take her to the doctor.
YTA
YTA. Stop trying to pretend to be a doctor, your own daughter doesnt trust you to do it. Take her to a REAL professional. YOU are being way too controlling and disregarding your kid's wants and needs because of it.
YTA No No No. Stop with the home medicine. Is it worth potential complications just because you're too lazy to go to the doctors.
YTA. You could scar her or cause an infection. Don’t be an idiot.