After two days, I was allowed to remove the Tegaderm and shower, but I needed to put a dressing on at the place where my drains came out. The nurse had given us three kinds of tape, all by 3M: Durapore, kind of a silky tape, Micropore, like a non-woven paper, and Transpore, a clear plastic tape with perforations in about a 1mm gird. In the end, they were about equal in terms of comfort. We used as little as humanly possible. My drains came out on June 25th. I still had to cover the holes with gauze for several more days, so by the 29th I was finished with bandages. I was still scrubbing black tape residue off my skin over the 4th of July weekend. Rubbing alcohol was worthless. My sugar scrub helped some, but in the end, the thing that worked the best was my Mary Kay oil-free eye makeup remover.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A sticky subject
Surgical tape and adhesives are very irritating to my skin. After my lumpectomy, I had a patch at the edge of the tape that itched and broke out like poison ivy. We discussed this prior to my surgery, and sure enough, my bandage from this surgery was different than that. It was like a plastic coating covering gauze and extending from my sternum around under my arm. I think it might have been Tegaderm by 3M. It comes in an 8x12" size that would accurately describe the extent of the bandage. Well, I broke out again! Several large blisters at the edge of the tape. It turns out that blisters can form from the friction of the tape putting shearing forces on the layers of skin. From the linked study, you can see that this can be more than minor irritation as it was for me.
After two days, I was allowed to remove the Tegaderm and shower, but I needed to put a dressing on at the place where my drains came out. The nurse had given us three kinds of tape, all by 3M: Durapore, kind of a silky tape, Micropore, like a non-woven paper, and Transpore, a clear plastic tape with perforations in about a 1mm gird. In the end, they were about equal in terms of comfort. We used as little as humanly possible. My drains came out on June 25th. I still had to cover the holes with gauze for several more days, so by the 29th I was finished with bandages. I was still scrubbing black tape residue off my skin over the 4th of July weekend. Rubbing alcohol was worthless. My sugar scrub helped some, but in the end, the thing that worked the best was my Mary Kay oil-free eye makeup remover.
After two days, I was allowed to remove the Tegaderm and shower, but I needed to put a dressing on at the place where my drains came out. The nurse had given us three kinds of tape, all by 3M: Durapore, kind of a silky tape, Micropore, like a non-woven paper, and Transpore, a clear plastic tape with perforations in about a 1mm gird. In the end, they were about equal in terms of comfort. We used as little as humanly possible. My drains came out on June 25th. I still had to cover the holes with gauze for several more days, so by the 29th I was finished with bandages. I was still scrubbing black tape residue off my skin over the 4th of July weekend. Rubbing alcohol was worthless. My sugar scrub helped some, but in the end, the thing that worked the best was my Mary Kay oil-free eye makeup remover.
