Runny nose over steristrips!

[potentialdogowner]

DC age 2 banged their face this morning and got a cut 1.5cm wide between their nose and lip going sideways.

Took to A&E as it was gaping a bit and didn't know how deep, they said it just touched into the fatty tissue and so just did steristrips to bring it together and said keep it dry and take off in 5-7 days. However throughout the day their nose has been running and it's obviously going all over the wound and the strips are peeling already!

I don't know what to do - would you leave it and see what happens, go back to A&E (seems a bit much to go to A&E with this?!), or see if I can see nurse at GP's tomorrow (worried they won't have appointments soon enough and it will gape /get infected).

I don't know

See the practice nurse today. It’s a shame they didn’t glue it instead as the snot is an infection risk. Hopefully it will heal quickly, so keep it as clean as you can.

If you can't get into your practice, do you have a minor injuries near you? It sounds a really awkward place to keep a cut clean! But it's not unreasonable to want to make sure it heals the best it can without scarring. I'm guessing maybe it could be re ster-sripped then covered with a small dressing for a couple days?

Thank you for the messages. Updating in case anyone has similar in future.

By this morning the steristrips had almost all come off and the wound looked very wet. I got DC in to see the practice nurse who had a good look and thinks it's knitting together okay and is not helpful to re-steristrip. It is actually this evening looking loads better and dryer with nothing on it, almost like the steristrips were helping keep it wet! Just hoping the scar isn't too big now, but I feel like we did all we could!

From my reading it looks like glue has to be kept dry too, so not sure that would have been any better. They didn't think it was gaping enough to warrant glue in A&E.

Glue should not be used on the lip.

Glad it's healing. If it's well knitting together then it will be fine. Any scarring should settle as he gets older. That's the problem with steristripping or dressing lips it just doesn't stay!

Not to worry you but I saw something similar on Greys Anatomy. Did they already have a runny nose before the head injury? I’m sure it’s absolutely fine if so, or if it looks like thicker snot, but if it’s thin then there’s a tiny chance (probably only happens in the tv world) that it’s leaking cerebrospinal fluid, CSF.

I googled how to tell the difference between CSF and snot and it said: CSF coming out of your nose has two key differences from nasal mucus: If you wipe your nose with a handkerchief, drying nasal mucus will cause the cloth to stiffen, but CSF won't.

Not to worry - it's definitely thick snot and it was there before the bump! Thank you though.

Thank you, really hoping the scar will be okay, I feel so bad even though there's nothing more I could have / can do!