What do dissolving stitches look like?

DaVinci total 3/8. Feeling good except for several bouts of bleeding necessitating a visit to the doctor for cauterization.

While examining me the last time, he commented I'm healing nicely and stitches are in place.

However, I started bleeding again (which he says is common and not of major concern). Sometimes mixed with the blood I see little black things that don't look like clots - rather, they look like the same kind of "stitches" I had on my abdomen which came off by themselves in about 3 weeks.

Am I seeing stitches and if so, is that to be expected? When they "dissolve", do they disappear or are they excreted?

Thanks.

Rhoda

Some fall out. They look like dark chunks of fishing line. Sometimes black, & sometimes purple.

Mine looked like really fine hair, light colored. If I had not looked in the toilet I would never had seen them. Most ladies on here do not. I have heard that they can be all different colors depending on the sutures that were used. Best wishes.

Never saw any of mine. Spotting due to the pooled blood at the top of the vaginal cuff and stitches dissolving. Didnt care if i saw any at all....just so the cuff healed....the vagina healed...and i had no further problems.

Since I had abdominal surgery, the stitches were on the top of the cuff, so stitches never fell through for me to see. They just dissolved into the tissue.

Rhoda-
Just wondering did your doctor use silver nitrate on you first? When I was post-op day 9 I had a HUGE amount of bleeding and blood clot. I did check the clot for stiches but did not see any. How many times did you go in for cauterization, only once? My bleeding was so bad I had to ruch to the ER early on a Sunday morning then to my GYN 2 days later. So far, the silver nitrate has slowed down my bleeding, and I am wearing lite pads again. I haven't done anything since day 1 that I'm not suppose to do, my doctor told me I am healing slowly in the vaginal cuff. It is frustrating! I also have a UTI I can't get rid of too. I feel like the complications keep coming, but remind myself we each HEAL in our own way and time. I'll be thinking and praying for you that you don't bleed anymore! Take care, robyn

He cauterized me about 9 days after surgery for light/moderate bleeding. Then it started again about a week later and he cauterized again.

I got, and am, upset when I started bleeding again, more than staining although not serious bleeding, the day after the second cauterization.

He is out of town and will cauterized again a week after the last one.

But I am grateful, reading your story, that none of my bleeding required or has even seriously suggested a trip to the ER.

Rhoda