The preparation before surgery depends on whether you have something done under local anesthesia in the office or something under general anesthesia in the operating room. However, some preparations are the same.
In general your procedure will result in less bleeding, if blood thinners are stopped a week prior to surgery. Blood thinners are the medication patients take after having a stent placed or when they have Afib (atrium fibrillation) or a history of clot formation like thrombosis in the leg or a PE (pulmonary embolus). Medications like Warfain, Coumadin, Heparin, Prodexa, Eliquis are the most common ones but medications which thin the blood also include aspirin and fish oil, NSAID’s and vitamin E. It is best to check with your cardiologist or primary care doctor whether you are allowed to stop these medications temporarily. Most often, these medications can be held for a week, but sometimes they can’t and we will have to do your surgery when you are on these blood thinners. done in the office under local anesthesia don’t require the patients to fast after midnight and skip breakfast. It is recommended to wash to operative site with Hibiclens an antibacterial soap starting 3 days prior to surgery. Have a light breakfast and go to the bathroom prior to the procedure. Bring something to readin case you have to wait and try not to get worked up, since that will raise your blood pressure unnecessarily and make you bleed more.
After surgery, they bandages typically stay on for 48 hours and then can be removed. Showering is allowed. Sitting in a bath tub or swimming is not allowed. It is recommended to clean the site with peroxide to remove dried blood and apply some polysporin and a bandaid twice per day. Generally we check the incision at 1 week and remove sutures on the face at that time as well. Sutures on the trunk, arms and legs stay in for 2 weeks.
If you develop any redness, itching or swelling at the operative site, it is recommended you give us a call. You could be allergic to the antibiotic cream, like Neosporin or have a superficial skin infection. Sometimes we have to treat it with an antibiotic like a cephalosporin (Keflex) or a similar antibiotic to treat it. We don’t put every patient on an antibiotic prophylactically, only high risk patients Or patients with implants (breast augmentation), drains (tummy tuck) or skin surgery on the lower legs.
