Having stitches removed on Koh Phi Phi
Stitches have to come out on time. Too early and the wound opens; too late and the skin grows around the thread, leaving the little railway-track marks people associate with bad scars. Suture removal in Koh Phi Phi takes a few minutes, costs very little, and we do it whether or not the stitches were ours.
When yours are due out
Timing goes by body site rather than by how the wound looks, because different sites are under very different tension:
- Face and neck — 5 days
- Scalp — 7 to 10 days
- Chest, back and abdomen — 10 to 14 days
- Arms — 7 to 10 days
- Legs — 10 to 14 days
- Hands, feet and across any joint — 10 to 14 days
Face is short deliberately. Facial skin heals quickly and has an excellent blood supply, so five days is enough — and every extra day is another day of thread marking skin that is going to be on display.
Stitches put in somewhere else
Entirely routine, and a good share of what we remove. People arrive having been treated in Krabi or Phuket, on another island, or before they ever came to Thailand.
Bring whatever paperwork you have. If you have none, that is workable — we can usually tell the material and technique by looking, and the important information is the date they went in and roughly where the wound is.
If you genuinely cannot remember the date, say so rather than guessing. We would rather assess the wound and decide than remove on the strength of a bad estimate, and a wound removed three days early is a worse problem than one removed two days late.
What happens, and whether it hurts
Very little, and no. The area is cleaned, each stitch lifted with forceps, cut on one side below the knot, and drawn out. It feels like a small tug.
The reason it is painless is that the thread is pulled through the side that was outside the skin, so nothing that has been sitting in the wound is dragged back through it. That is also why cutting your own stitches with nail scissors is a poor idea — it usually pulls the dirty external portion straight through the healing track.
The whole thing takes a few minutes. Most people are surprised it was worth the walk, which is the point: it is a small job that prevents a large one.
Why not to do it yourself
People do, particularly when a ferry is booked, and the results come back to us.
The three failures are all common: cutting on the wrong side and pulling contaminated thread through the wound, missing a stitch entirely and leaving it buried until it forms a small abscess weeks later, and removing everything on day four because the wound looks fine and then watching it open.
A wound that has been closed for a week is not a wound that has healed. At the point stitches come out, the repair has perhaps ten per cent of its final strength — which is why what happens in the fortnight after removal matters as much as the removal itself.
What we check while they are out
Whether the wound edges hold once the support is gone, whether there is any sign of infection, whether anything is still buried in it, and whether the scar is behaving normally for its age.
If the edges look likely to separate — common over knuckles, knees and anywhere that bends — we support the line with adhesive strips for a further few days. A small intervention that regularly saves a scar from stretching.
Removal is also the only occasion anybody looks at the wound properly with the thread gone. Problems hidden underneath the stitches — a pocket of infection, a fragment of coral or grit still in the track, edges that never knitted at one end — are visible for about thirty seconds and easy to deal with in that moment. Found a week later at home, the same things are a course of antibiotics and a worse scar.
Spreading redness at this stage is the one thing that changes the plan entirely. That is cellulitis rather than slow healing, and it needs antibiotics the same day rather than a follow-up appointment.
Looking after the scar afterwards
The first three months decide how the scar ends up, and the two things that matter most are sun and tension.
Keep it covered or under high-factor sunscreen. A fresh scar exposed to sun at this latitude pigments darkly and permanently, and on an island where most people spend the day in swimwear it is by far the commonest avoidable cause of an ugly result.
Avoid stretching the line — no heavy loading through a hand scar, no deep bending through a knee scar, for a few weeks. Silicone gel or sheeting helps if the scar thickens, and massaging it gently once fully closed helps it soften. Neither is urgent on the day the stitches come out.
If you are leaving before they are due
Not a problem, and not a reason to have them out early. Any clinic anywhere in the world removes stitches, and it is cheap and quick everywhere.
We will give you the removal date in writing along with the site and the material used, which is all the next clinic needs. If you are flying long-haul, keep the wound covered and dry through the journey and change the dressing on arrival.
The ferry deserves its own mention. Crossings here are wet, crowded and salty, and spray reaches most seats on a rough day. Come in before you travel and we will re-dress it for the journey rather than have you arrive with soaked gauze over a healing wound.
Diving, swimming and the rest of the trip
Give it a couple of days after removal for the puncture points to seal before any water at all, then keep the scar out of direct sun.
Diving is usually fine once the punctures have closed, with one caveat: a wetsuit dragged over a fresh scar can split it, and a scar on a hand or forearm takes a surprising amount of load from fins and ladders. If the wound was on a hand, give it longer than feels necessary.
If you still have stitches in and a dive booked, come and ask rather than guessing. Sometimes the answer is that the dive is fine and the swim afterwards is not — see dive medical.
Frequently asked questions
Can you remove stitches put in at another clinic?
Yes, including ones put in abroad. Bring any paperwork you have, though we can manage without it.
Does it hurt?
No. Each stitch is cut and drawn out in a way that pulls nothing dirty back through the wound. It feels like a small tug.
How much does it cost?
Very little — it is one of the cheapest things we do, and you are told before we start.
What if I take them out myself?
We would rather you did not. The usual outcomes are a buried stitch that abscesses later, contaminated thread pulled through the wound, or a wound opened by removing them too early.
How do I know if it is too early?
Go by site and date rather than appearance. A wound looks healed several days before it has any real strength.
What if the wound opens after removal?
Come straight back. Usually it is supported with adhesive strips; occasionally it needs re-closing. Either way it is a same-day fix.
Can I swim once they are out?
Give it a couple of days for the puncture points to seal, then keep it out of the sun. Seawater on a scar that has only just closed is worth avoiding a little longer.
Can I dive with stitches in?
Come and ask. Sometimes the dive is fine and the swim afterwards is not, and a wetsuit over a fresh wound on a hand or forearm is the usual problem.
The island arithmetic, and where we fit in it
English-speaking doctors on site, 24 hours a day. It is worth spelling out why that matters rather than leaving it as a claim. Koh Phi Phi has no hospital, no road connection and no ambulance service. Getting to an emergency department means a boat, and the scheduled boats run in daylight — so for a good part of every twenty-four hours, the island’s own clinic is not the convenient option, it is the only one. Everything about how we are staffed follows from that single fact.
Beyond the island, Doctor Phi Phi Takecare Clinic belongs to the Takecare Clinic group, which operates across Krabi and Phuket. The practical value of that is continuity: if your treatment carries on after you leave, the next clinic already holds your notes, and a referral is a phone call between colleagues rather than a stack of paperwork you have to carry yourself.
Coming in
Doctor Phi Phi Takecare Clinic is 24 hours, every day, and that is the building being open with a doctor in it rather than a phone line that answers. No appointment is needed at any point, and there is no hour at which turning up is inconvenient for us. There are 2 branches on the island, about ten minutes apart on foot, and both keep the same hours — so head for whichever is closer rather than looking for the right one. Walk in, or reach us on +66 82 140 3858 or WhatsApp. If you would rather not move, ask for a doctor hotel visit and we will come to you.
If it turns out this is beyond what the island can treat, the same conversation is where the boat and the hospital transfer start being arranged. That process is worth beginning early rather than late here, because the options genuinely narrow as the evening goes on — and a decision made at nine is a considerably better decision than the same one made at two in the morning.