Lip laceration - any insight?

[sapph22]

Hi all,

Last week my mare tore a gash in her lip which needed to be sutured, 2 internal to pull through tissue together and about 5 on the outside. The wound was relatively fresh when we found it, and the vet came out right away. He debated using stitches, but since the laceration was deep (but did not go all the way through the flesh), we went for it.

Yesterday, she tore some of the external stitches. This is 9 days post-injury with stitches that were due to come out after 12 days.

Any insight as to how likely the stitches will have to be redone? The internal stitches did not tear. Vet looked at pics and recommended it heal/crust over. Will it heal “incorrectly”? I hear that mouth/lip wounds heal quickly… if it heals and needs to be redone, will the vet have to reopen the wound? I’ve never dealt with a would that needed to be stitched shut before, so if anyone has experience I’d love to hear it.

Pics below of the wound when it was first cleaned, then stitched, and now torn. Apologies if they are in the wrong order, I’m posting from mobile and sick of fighting with it

http://m.imgur.com/a/7dVq6

[keysfins]

No experience with a wound like that. But I would have the vet out again to have a look. That looks like there is infection in there. Is horse on any antibiotics?

The difference from the newly stitched area and the same area at 9 days post-suturing does not look like it will heal cleanly. And it just looks like it needs to be cleaned out.

Some wounds can be cleaned up, trimmed to fresh clean tissue, and re-sutured. I know there are vets here ( I am not a vet), maybe one could suggest the next steps.

[Kyrabee]

I agree that it looks infected. At this point, I would probably opt to remove the stitches and flush gently a couple time/day. Facial wounds usually heal quite well they have a good blood supply. The edges are well approximated.

What does vet say?

Susan

[sapph22]

The vet hasn’t seen her in person yet, just the pictures. He said to let it heal over, and if the tissue heals in two parts, he would have to cut it again and re-stitch. He didn’t mention infection.

[AKB]

I think it looks fine (but I am not a vet). I would expect it to heal uneventfully, as long as the horse doesn’t scratch it more.

[caper]

I had a similar injury but he didn’t re-open it. Mine was more in the corner of the mouth. So it would get icky when he was eating. It started to smell bad so vet recommended a solution 50/50 water and peroxide and syringe a couple times a day. It healed fine. Keep it irrigated.

It may close but I’d consider having the vet out again.

[specifiedcupcake]

Been there! https://imgur.com/a/zx9uH

But I was advised not to give her anything for pain after the day of suturing - if it’s sore they won’t rub it on things. It got a liberal Alu-shield spray on for a week to keep water and dirt out and 5 days of antibiotics just because that’s a hard place to keep clean.

You don’t want to over scrub sutured wounds because that softens the skin but I might give yours a bit of a clean and then seal with the Alu-shield to keep dry. Make sure vet doesn’t think abx are a good idea since the wound is re-opened.

[sapph22]

This post is old, but I was thinking about it earlier and decided to add an update for anyone dealing with a similar situation who might search this thread up. I ended up just cleansing the wound daily to keep infection at bay (simple water & peroxide - vet said the discharge in the photos was normal), and very soon noticed that proud flesh had started filling in the deepest part of the wound. Per the vet, we left the remaining stitches in for about 5 days after this posting, and from that point on everything was fine. Her body did the job - the wound closed up, and other than a very feint scar that you’d only notice if you knew there was once a wound, she’s just fine. Vet thinks the wound couldn’t have been there more than a couple hours prior to his suture, so it likely had a good head start in healing to begin with.