How Long Should Stitches Stay In Before Removal?

Most nonabsorbable stitches should stay in for somewhere between five and fourteen days, depending mainly on where on the body they are placed. Facial stitches typically come out the soonest, while stitches over joints or on the lower legs stay in the longest. That range sounds wide, but once you know the logic behind it, the specific window for any given wound becomes straightforward.

Why the Timing of Removal Matters

Stitch removal is a balancing act between two opposing risks. If stitches come out too early, the wound edges have not knitted together with enough strength to hold on their own, and the wound can reopen, sometimes partially and sometimes fully. If stitches stay in too long, the suture material itself starts to cause problems. Skin cells begin growing around and over the thread, which can lead to visible track marks on either side of the wound, sometimes called “railroad tracks” or suture marks. Those marks are permanent once they form, which is why cosmetically sensitive areas like the face get their stitches removed sooner than, say, a shin.

Leaving stitches in too long also raises the chance of localized infection. The thread creates tiny channels through the skin that bacteria can travel along, and the longer those channels exist, the greater the opportunity for trouble. So the goal is always the same: keep the stitches in long enough for the wound to gain adequate tensile strength, then get them out before they start doing more harm than good.

Removal Timelines by Body Part

The single biggest factor in how long your stitches stay in is the location of the wound. Different parts of the body heal at very different speeds, mostly because of differences in blood supply. Areas with rich blood flow, like the face and scalp, heal faster. Areas farther from the heart or under more mechanical stress, like the shins and feet, heal more slowly.

Here are the widely used general guidelines:

Face: 3 to 5 days. The face has excellent blood supply, so wounds gain strength quickly. Early removal also minimizes visible scarring in this cosmetically important area.
Scalp: 7 to 10 days. Blood supply is still good, but the scalp is thicker and under more tension from the muscles beneath it.
Ears: 10 to 14 days. Cartilage areas heal more slowly because cartilage has limited blood supply compared to soft tissue.
Chest and abdomen: 7 to 10 days, though some surgeons extend this to 14 days for wounds under significant tension.
Arms: 7 to 10 days.
Back: 10 to 14 days. The back is under constant tension from movement, so wounds there need more time.
Legs: 10 to 14 days. Lower-extremity circulation is slower, and gravity works against wound healing below the waist.
Hands and fingers: 10 to 14 days, particularly if the wound crosses a joint.
Feet and soles: 10 to 14 days, sometimes longer, because these areas bear weight.
Over joints (knees, elbows): 10 to 14 days. Constant bending puts stress on the wound edges.

Facial wounds deserve a bit of extra context. In studies comparing different closure methods for facial and neck lacerations, sutures using fine thread in the 5-0 to 6-0 range are standard, and early removal at three to five days is common specifically to prevent stitch marks from forming on skin that people see every day.¹ After those stitches come out, adhesive strips are often placed across the wound to provide continued support while healing progresses.

What Can Push the Timeline Longer

The body-part ranges above assume a healthy adult whose wound is healing normally. Several factors can push removal further out, sometimes by several days.

Diabetes is one of the most common reasons for delayed healing. High blood sugar impairs the function of white blood cells and slows the formation of new blood vessels in the wound bed. If you have diabetes, especially if your blood sugar has been poorly controlled, your doctor may leave stitches in a few extra days beyond the standard window and monitor the wound more closely in the meantime.

Medications that suppress the immune system, including corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs, also slow healing. The same applies to conditions like peripheral vascular disease, which reduces blood flow to the extremities. People on blood thinners are not necessarily slower healers, but their wounds may have more bruising and swelling, which can complicate the assessment of whether the wound is ready.

Age matters, too. Older skin has less collagen and slower cell turnover, so wounds in elderly patients sometimes need a few extra days. Nutritional status plays a role as well; protein and vitamin C are both critical to collagen synthesis, and deficiencies in either can meaningfully slow wound repair.

Wound characteristics themselves can shift the timeline. A wound that is under high tension because of its location or size, a wound that was heavily contaminated at the time of injury, or a wound that shows any early signs of infection may all warrant a longer stitch-in period. Your clinician will evaluate the wound at the time of your scheduled removal and may decide to leave some or all stitches in for a few more days if things are not progressing as expected.

Absorbable Stitches and Why They Do Not Need Removal

Not all stitches are meant to come out. Absorbable sutures are made from materials that the body breaks down on its own over time, usually through hydrolysis or enzymatic digestion. These are used for deeper tissue layers, for internal surgical closures, and sometimes for the skin surface in areas where follow-up removal would be impractical or particularly distressing, such as in young children or inside the mouth.

When absorbable stitches are used on the skin surface, they dissolve over a period ranging from about one week to several months, depending on the material. Fast-absorbing gut sutures, which are sometimes used on facial lacerations in children, lose their tensile strength in about a week and fall apart shortly after. Slower-absorbing materials like polyglactin can take weeks to months to fully dissolve.

The tradeoff is that absorbable sutures on the skin surface can sometimes cause more tissue reaction, leading to slightly more redness or irritation around the wound. For cosmetically important areas in adults, many surgeons still prefer nonabsorbable sutures with early removal, since the combination of a fine nonabsorbable thread and prompt removal at three to five days tends to leave a finer scar than letting an absorbable suture inflame the tissue over a longer dissolution period.

Staples, Adhesive Strips, and Skin Glue

Stitches are not the only way wounds get closed, and each alternative has its own removal timeline and considerations.

Surgical staples are commonly used for longer incisions, particularly in orthopedic and abdominal surgery, because they are much faster to place. In a randomized trial comparing staples to sutures in orthopedic patients, the average wound-closure time with staples was under five minutes, compared to about twelve minutes for sutures.² Staples are typically removed at seven to fourteen days using a specialized staple remover. One thing to be aware of: staple removal tends to be more uncomfortable than stitch removal. In the same trial, patients in the staple group reported more pain during removal than those who had sutures taken out.²

Adhesive strips, often sold under the brand name Steri-Strips, are thin sticky tapes placed across a wound to hold the edges together. They are used either as the primary closure for small, shallow wounds or as reinforcement after stitches are removed. Strips do not need a formal removal appointment; they are designed to fall off on their own after about five to ten days as the adhesive weakens. You should resist the urge to peel them off early.

Skin glue, or tissue adhesive, is a liquid adhesive applied over the wound surface. It forms a protective barrier that peels off naturally within five to ten days. For facial and neck wounds, a meta-analysis found that tissue adhesives gave slightly better cosmetic results than sutures in the first month, though sutures pulled ahead in cosmetic outcomes at the three- to twelve-month mark.¹ Skin glue works best for small, clean lacerations that are not under tension. It should not be scrubbed or soaked while it is in place.

What Happens During Stitch Removal

If you have never had stitches removed, the idea can sound worse than the reality. The process is quick and usually involves only mild discomfort, not the sharp pain most people imagine.

A clinician will clean the area, then use fine scissors or a stitch cutter to snip one side of each stitch loop, close to the skin. The thread is then gently pulled out from the other side. You may feel a slight tugging sensation, but because the thread is thin and the cuts are tiny, it is rarely painful. The entire process for a typical laceration with five to eight stitches takes only a few minutes.

For wounds with many stitches, or wounds that are in sensitive spots, the clinician may remove every other stitch first, check that the wound is holding together, and then remove the rest. This “alternate removal” technique is common for longer incisions on the trunk or back where the wound is under tension. If any section of the wound looks like it is not ready, those stitches stay in for a few more days.

After removal, the wound line is still fragile. It has regained only a fraction of its final strength at this point, which is why adhesive strips are often applied as a bridge. Avoid heavy lifting, stretching, or activities that pull on the wound for at least another week or two.

What Happens If You Miss the Removal Window

Life gets busy, and sometimes people miss their scheduled stitch-removal appointment by a few days or longer. A delay of a day or two is unlikely to cause serious problems, though it does increase the chance of those suture track marks forming, especially on the face. A delay of a week or more is a different story. The skin can grow completely over the suture material, making removal more difficult and more uncomfortable. In some cases, the embedded thread causes a localized foreign-body reaction, leading to small, inflamed bumps along the stitch line.

If your stitches have been in significantly longer than scheduled, do not try to remove them yourself. See a clinician, who can assess whether any of the suture material has become embedded and handle removal with sterile instruments. Attempting DIY removal with household scissors is a recipe for infection and incomplete removal, where a broken fragment of thread left under the skin can cause ongoing irritation.

Signs That Something Is Wrong Before Removal Day

While you are waiting for your removal appointment, watch for warning signs that the wound is not healing normally. A small amount of redness and swelling right around the stitches is expected in the first couple of days. What is not normal includes:

Increasing redness: Redness that spreads outward from the wound over several days rather than shrinking.
Warmth and swelling: The area around the wound feels hot to the touch or swells significantly after the first 48 hours.
Drainage: Pus or foul-smelling discharge coming from the wound or stitch sites.
Fever: A body temperature above 100.4°F (38°C) developing after a wound closure can indicate infection.
Wound separation: The wound edges pulling apart despite the stitches, which may indicate excessive tension or an underlying issue.

If any of these occur, contact your healthcare provider before your scheduled removal date. An infected wound may need antibiotics, and sometimes stitches are removed early to allow an infected wound to drain, which changes the entire management plan.

Caring for the Scar After Stitches Come Out

The scar’s final appearance is not determined the day your stitches are removed. Scars continue to remodel for six months to a year or more. During the early weeks after removal, the scar may look pink, raised, or slightly lumpy. This is normal. Over time, most scars flatten and fade to a paler shade, though they rarely become completely invisible.

Sun protection is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do. New scar tissue is highly susceptible to UV-induced hyperpigmentation, which can leave a dark, permanent discoloration. Covering the scar with clothing or applying a broad-spectrum sunscreen for at least six months after injury makes a meaningful cosmetic difference.

Silicone-based products, available as sheets or gels applied directly over the scar, are among the most studied interventions for scar management. In a study of women who applied silicone gel to their cesarean-section scars starting five to seven days after suture removal, the treatment showed favorable results in preventing raised or deformed scarring.³ Silicone works by hydrating the outer skin layer over the scar, which appears to regulate collagen production and reduce the likelihood of a raised or thickened scar. Over-the-counter silicone scar sheets and gels are widely available and generally worth trying for any scar you want to minimize.

Massage is another approach with some clinical support. Once the wound is fully closed and the surface has healed over, gently massaging the scar with a moisturizer for a few minutes each day can help break up collagen bundles and soften the tissue. This is most effective when started a few weeks after stitch removal and continued for several months. It will not erase a scar, but it can reduce thickness and improve how the scar feels under your fingers.

When Stitches Are Used on Children

Children heal faster than adults, and their stitch-removal timelines are sometimes slightly shorter as a result. But the bigger issue with pediatric stitches is usually the removal experience itself. Having stitches taken out can be frightening for a young child, which is one reason clinicians often opt for absorbable sutures or skin glue for pediatric lacerations when the wound allows it.

For facial lacerations in children, fast-absorbing gut sutures are a popular choice. These dissolve quickly enough that the child never needs a formal removal visit, and they produce acceptable cosmetic results for the types of small, clean cuts that children commonly get. When nonabsorbable stitches are used in a child, particularly on the face, removal at the three- to five-day mark remains the standard to avoid scarring. Preparing the child by explaining the process in simple terms and using distraction techniques, like letting them watch a video during removal, helps make the experience far less traumatic than the child is expecting.

For wounds on a child’s extremities or trunk, the standard adult timelines apply, sometimes shaved by a day or so at the clinician’s discretion. Children’s faster healing is an advantage, but it also means that delayed removal carries a higher risk of track marks, since skin cells in children migrate and proliferate more rapidly around the suture thread.

1
PubMed Central. Cyanoacrylate Tissue Adhesives Compared With Sutures on Facial and Neck Wounds: A Meta‐analysis
2
PubMed Central. Sutures versus staples for wound closure in orthopaedic surgery: a pilot randomized controlled trial
3
REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY. Benefits of the effect of silicone gel on postoperative healing