I’ve had a mole removed from my foot this morning. It was near to the joint of the big toe, on the side. The doctor put stitches in, which need to be removed on 20th September, and the nurse put some steristrips on top and this was covered by a Leukomed T plus dressing. I was given one change of dressing and a packet of gauze. The nurse told me to not change the dressing unless it was either saturated in blood or if it started to come away from the skin and to not get it wet. She put a big wad of gauze over the dressing and a tubigrip over that to create some pressure.
Apart from numbness it felt ok to walk on and made the journey home. When I got home I took my sock off and noticed blood on it and the tubigrip. Checked under it and the dressing was saturated with blood and the blood had leaked/dried across the sole of my foot/in between my toes. Took the dressing off and applied clean gauze over the steristrips and kept it pressed down for 15 mins, as outlined in the leaflet. This seemed to stop the bleeding. The steristrips were loose but I wasn’t keen on taking them off and exposing the wound underneath.
I redressed the wound with the spare dressing and kept my foot elevated for over an hour before walking on it again. Check it after I sat down and there’s been some bleeding seeped through on the dressing but not as much as the first time so I’ve left it on.
I’ve tried to clean around the dressing but there’s dried blood underneath the dressing and close to where the dressing ends. I imagine if it keeps bleeding when I put weight on it I may need to change the dressing again, but don’t want to have to do this for at least a day or so and then hopefully I won’t have to do it again.
My question is this. The steristrips are still on top of the wound but aren’t really held on by anything. Would it be ok to take them off when I next change the dressing and would it be ok to wipe around the area, just leaving a margin around the wound and the wound itself alone?
The nurse said it’s common for the wound to bleed a bit but didn’t seem to think I’d need to change the dressing at all really. I’m assuming because pressure is put on the area when I walk it’s increased the bleeding. I’ve not got any other appointments apart from stitch removal and I can’t leave my foot like this til then.
Thanks in advance 